Who is Anketa Maharana aka Apsara Rani ?

By Sourabha Parida Bhubaneswar, July 13: A Tweet of controversial Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) has stirred hurricane in Odisha over introducing a struggling Odisha born model turned actress Anketa Maharana as Apsara Rani, being moved by her enchanting beauty. The little known Anketa Maharana shot into limelight after RGV rediscovered her as Apsara Rani and shared a bold picture of the 24-year-old model. "Before meeting Apsara,I dint even hear about Orissa since the 1999 hurricane..but after meeting her now ,I realised that Orissa creates all kinds of hurricanes..it’s been a great revelation that Orissa has such beauties ..MORE POWER TO ORISSA @apsara_rani," RGV twitted on July 6. wp:core-embed/twitter {"url":"https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280018857332219905","type":"rich","providerNameSlug":"twitter","className":""} https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280018857332219905 /wp:core-embed/twitter Soon after, the netizens from Odisha trolled him for his 'lack of knowledge' about his neighbouring state and comparing an Odisha born girl with 'hurricane' posting her bold picture. The very next day RGV twitted, "Never even thought of Odisha as a talent pool for film industry..But going by @apsara_rani_coming from there , both the rest of the country and Odisha itself should seriously look at Odisha". wp:core-embed/twitter {"url":"https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280549423320166402","type":"rich","providerNameSlug":"twitter","className":""} https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280549423320166402 /wp:core-embed/twitter On July 6, after introducing her next heroine, RGV was excited with growing popularity of Apsara. Replying to a tweet of Apsara, "I can’t tell how happy I am with this overflow of love ..10 k in 7 hours.... As an aspiring actor it gives me so much encouragement, and positivity... #overwhelmed", RGV wrote back,  "WOWWW 10,000 tweet followers in 7 hours ..That must be a record for a newcomer ..Hey @apsara_rani_ u are THRILLERing". wp:core-embed/twitter {"url":"https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280142739867303938","type":"rich","providerNameSlug":"twitter","className":""} https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/1280142739867303938 /wp:core-embed/twitter The above tweet reflects the typical strategy of the filmmaker to bring an ordinary figure into limelight. Before RGV's social media introduction and branding, Anketa Maharana was a forest bloom in Indian film industry whose first low budget Telgu film '4 Letters' was released last year. She did not evoke any favourable response from the film. The next cast was Patnagarh, a real-life bilingual film on Patnagarh gift parcel bomb explosion in Odisha's Balangir district which is struck in controversy and yet to be released. However, even before release of her next movie Thriller, she has turned into talk of the Bollywood with RGV introducing her as his next heroine with bold pictures.