Harsha opens up about dealing with body shaming in his childhood and how it made him feel very inferior as a kid. “People would hurl words and throw insults at my face. When guests came to the house, I would lock myself in the room and come up with excuses about being in tuition. Because once I came out they used to say things like, “Why are you not walking? why are you not dieting?” I would blame myself for having to see my parents go through this,” he says, adding that even today, the society hasn’t changed much in this regard. The actor reveals that even the initial roles he managed to land were all based on his body image. “I knew I had to go through this phase to sustain myself in the industry and reach a certain point; to become the kind of actor I was dreaming to be. That phase was tough and lonely. However, to cope with this, I made up my mind that if someone was looking and laughing at me, it was because of my existence. If I wasn’t there, that person wouldn’t have had a chance to smile otherwise. After this change in mindset, it was no longer laughing at me but laughing with me.”
Even though the actor has been in the industry for over a decade and has done several interesting roles, the actor asserts that he still has a lot to explore because his dreams keep evolving. He says, “I still feel like I haven’t made anything. If you believe that you have already made it, you wouldn’t be able to dream beyond that. If I thought just coming into films was my ultimate goal, I would be stuck there only. My goals kept evolving, I thought I should make more films, then different films and then different kinds of characters. Now, I feel whatever the film be I should do my job correctly and I should be true to my craft.”