Aishwarya Sridhar: First Indian woman to win Wildlife Photographer of the Year shines again with leopard documentary

It’s been a remarkable journey for 28-year-old Aishwarya Sridhar, the only daughter of Sridhar Ranganathan, a former Vodafone employee, and homemaker Rani Sridhar. Now, Aishwarya is back in the spotlight for all the right reasons with her latest documentary on a male leopard named ‘Rana’, filmed in Jhalana, Rajasthan — a gripping tale of the big cat’s coming-of-age and his bold challenge against his own father.

Hyderabad: Life can never be easy for a normal, middle-class girl who was privileged to stay connected to Mother Nature at a very young age at her home-town Panvel (Maharashtra) and later went on to explore the world out there in the wild and most importantly to be the first Indian woman to win at the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards in London in 2020 in Adult category! For the record that Award she got for fireflies against the starlet sky at Bhandardara in Maharashtra.

Well, that has been an incredible journey for the 28-year-old Aishwarya Sridhar, only daughter to Sridhar Ranganathan (who worked in Vodafone) and Rani Sridhar (housewife).

Now, Aishwarya should be in the news for all right reasons again thanks to her latest documentary on a male leopard ‘Rana’, shot in Jhalana in Rajasthan, which depicts the life story on how he grows up, challenging his own father.

“It took more than a year for me to shoot this film with my team and the theme is Bollywood-infused with a different style of editing, music and script too. It is more of a dynasty drama,” Aishwarya informed ‘Telangana Today’ on Monday. “It is more like Bollywood meeting wildlife,” she added.

“My team and I have been tracking this leopard since he was young and he is now five years of age and it has been a thrilling experience,” said the National Geographic Explorer who was featured extensively on BBC, NatGeo.

“It recently premiered on ServusTV in Austria/Germany and is now scheduled to release in France on Arte,” Aishwarya said.

Interestingly, the Rana documentary is part of the dream project of Aishwarya to produce three documentaries on three iconic cats of India.

“The first one was on the legendary queen of Taru (Tadoba) Maya in 2021, the second one was on Asiatic lions called India’s Lion Queen – which followed Noor’ in Gir of Gujarat,” said Aishwarya who founded her own natural history production company called Bambee Studios Pvt Ltd, a full service documentary production company headquartered in Mumbai.

For someone who teams up with cinematographer Kenneth Lawrence for these productions, this Mass Media student of Pillai College of Arts, Commerce and Science (Mumbai), the challenges are quite similar to what most of the women face in other fields.

“Yes, I am sorry to say that at times I do face gender and age bias. It is very unfortunate. But, the comforting aspect is that many other photographers (men) have been so good and encouraging that that keeps me going,” she said. “There were many times when I was looked down upon. But my passion for Nature transcended all these barriers,” she added.

“Yes, winning at WPY was something really special for me. Hope to keep coming up with some really special projects in future too,” she signed off.