About Anushka Sharma
Anushka Sharma's reputation as a reluctant singer could rival the fabled likes of Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, Sushma Sangarh, the three Kohli kids, Zara Khumra, and the one of the three Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy that once included Amitabh Bachchan's daughter Shweta and Kangana Ranaut, and that's with one credit on the scale. Even at a ripe, untainted age, Sharma could have been facing a reckoning for a variety of reasons, including the lack of acting experience and the result that she may have just one single-star film as a benchmark to gauge her acting capabilities.
And yet, the one thing she does have is fans. There are more than two million people tweeting about her recently, a number that has grown every time the actress features on the cover of a magazine. There are millions more on Facebook as well. Anushka Sharma is the country's most popular star on social media, perhaps the second to Salman Khan, but it's been a while since she appeared on a chart. And this is a quality of social media that actors strive for – that instant fame which doesn't last, and doesn't necessarily have to be anything spectacular either.
It's a marked difference from the double-edged fame of actors such as Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, with names that echo in bars across the country. In a country that has exploded in social media, Sharma has captured the attention of those who are worried about the future of entertainment.
Her fan base is unruly and diverse, all of them part of her quest for superstardom. Anushka Sharma has the Instagram-minded, the movie-goers, the music buffs, the celebs who haven't ever tweeted, and a million more in between. And that's probably the reason why she's being pitched as an option for brand endorsements by the likes of Nike, Adidas, and Hindustan Unilever – an approach that her contemporaries aren't even able to harness, all in an attempt to capture what's happening in India's rapidly expanding social media landscape.
What makes Anushka Sharma's social media run different from her peers is the talent that she portrays on social media, and the way she is portraying it. She is not a star that plays games on Twitter, or that tweets about herself constantly to generate likes and followers. In an interview that Anushka Sharma gave, she said that social media was not something she considered pursuing for some time, but she was experimenting with it while on the sets of Bajirao Mastani. The fact that she would have been working with Vikas Bahl, who has a history of being deemed as one of the greatest directors of cinema of the 21st century, indicates that her choice was logical. It was only after she shot for the film that she would have gone on to work on it on social media, and the consistent engagement that her work is generating is a result of the fact that she has now found the right platform to portray her talent.
If Anushka Sharma can look like an uncharismatic stunner for almost two decades, then there is hope that one day, she will look like an engaging star. For now, what she is doing on social media is far more entertaining than being an actor.
Her massive success in films such as NH10, Phillauri, and her expanding social media presence in the most unconventional of ways, is an unprecedented and unheralded achievement for any actor of her stature. And it has given her a new level of notoriety.
More than a year after her Hollywood debut, it's almost as if the country is daring her to quit, or at least accept a slightly lower-profile job. Anushka Sharma has set the benchmark to which an actor can be judged in the social media era, but it doesn't take much to make you look like an extra-ordinary star. Anushka Sharma has an ensemble of friends, a seemingly endless list of possible brands for endorsement, and a focus that no other star has managed to hold onto this far. If Anushka Sharma is truly looking to take a break from her work, it should be well deserved.
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