Dhanush backs Sai Pallavi's Sita amid Ramayana trolling

Dhanush has a short answer for everyone still arguing over Sai Pallavi as Sita in Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana. Search the whole country, he says, and you will not find another.

He said it at the OM audio launch in Chennai on November 6, the day after Ramayana opened, and a clip of the moment has been doing the rounds since. “There is so much noise and chatter around her portrayal of Sita. I really don’t understand it,” he said. “Even during shot breaks, she would be praying constantly. She is someone with such profound devotion to God, someone with such a pure heart. She looks so beautiful and she is a great performer. Even if you search across all of India, you won’t find another Sita like her.” The hall cheered him through it.

The noise he means has been building since the first promotional material. A section of social media decided her looks, make-up and curly hair did not match the Sita in their heads, and an April clip from an Ek Din promotion turned her Hindi accent into a second front. Once the film released, her action scenes, in which Sita fights off demonic creatures, gave the purists a third. Dipika Chikhlia, who played Sita in Ramanand Sagar’s 1987 television series, said she did not remember any such scenes in Valmiki’s or Tulsidas’ versions, while allowing that India has more than 300 Ramayanas to borrow from. Our own Ramayana review had its reservations about the central pair, but for very different reasons.

Dhanush’s defence came wrapped inside a longer reflection on how far she has come since Maari 2, their first film together, in 2018. “When I first met Sai Pallavi during Maari 2, she was so innocent and spoke very little. She would think carefully before saying anything,” he recalled. “Seeing her nine years later on the sets of this film, I found her completely transformed. She stood there as someone who had thoroughly mastered cinema. In her speech, her walk and her expressions, everything reflected immense confidence and poise. It was astonishing.”

In OM, Rajkumar Periasamy’s red sandalwood smuggling drama, she plays police officer Nithya Reddy, a part Dhanush described as anything but easy. “Sai Pallavi took it up boldly and courageously and delivered a wonderful performance,” he said. She had told the same audience that the director believed in her police role more than she did.

The trolling has not dented Ramayana’s run. Trade trackers put the film at ₹507.20 crore worldwide across its first four days, with Ranbir Kapoor as Ram and Yash as Ravana. Sita’s second instalment is slated for Diwali 2028. Sai Pallavi’s next appearance, in uniform opposite Dhanush and Mammootty, is on November 20.