With a small twist of fate, Chitrangda Singh might have appeared in the first chapter of ‘Raat Akeli Hai’. Instead, the opportunity slipped away quietly when the film bypassed theaters and premiered on streaming. Years later, that missed moment has come full circle. Singh now plays a central role in the sequel, ‘Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders’, stepping into the story not through a song, but through grief, silence, and restrained intensity.
Why the first collaboration never happened
According to Mid-Day, Singh revealed that she was initially approached for a special song in the first film. “Honey had gotten in touch with me for a song in the first film. They wanted to put a special song for the theatrical release. But that got dropped because the film went to OTT,” she recalled in an interview. The shift in release plans changed the film’s structure, and the song never materialized.At the time, there was no disappointment. That conversation simply faded. The sequel, however, reopened the door. Singh shared that director Honey Trehan reached out while she was busy shooting another project. “He messaged me, saying, ‘Do you know what you’re doing in January-February?’ I said, ‘I am shooting with you’,” she said with a laugh.It was only during a meeting that she realized the project was ‘Raat Akeli Hai 2’, with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte returning to the franchise.
Playing grief and carrying the film’s social weight
In ‘Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders’, Singh plays a mother devastated by the loss of her son. The role demanded physical and emotional restraint. “I had to remind myself that the energy of this woman is somebody who has lost her son,” she explained. “So, I doubled my emotional weight and dragged myself because the woman doesn’t even want to even live anymore.”Trehan’s direction focused on silence and movement over dialogue. Singh said her brief was to express pain through body language alone.Beyond personal grief, the film carries sharp social commentary. A key storyline involves children falling ill after a toxic gas leak from a factory. That aspect struck a nerve. “As a mother, I also worry about the water we’re drinking,” Singh said. “While shooting, I realized that social commentary is such an important part of the film. What a character does in the end is because there is no justice.”
