The guilt of leaving your baby hits hardest: Lavanya Tripathi

For Lavanya Tripathi, the hardest part of returning to work wasn’t the long hours or the lights. It’s the small steps, “like dressing up for an interview,” that bring unexpected helplessness. “When you’re in makeup and certain clothes, you can’t touch your baby.

He was looking at me and I felt so much guilt,” she confesses, adding, “I have so much respect for mothers who work and take care of their child. This guilt is more than anything else.” Five months into motherhood, the actor is slowly navigating the emotional shift of returning to professional commitments. “I was in this zone of just taking care of my child and suddenly I had to break that and come back to reality,” she says.Life after welcoming her baby boy has shifted entirely in ways no call sheet could prepare her for. “Before, I had all the time for myself. Right now, all my time, my thoughts... literally everything revolves around my son,” she shares. While Lavanya says motherhood hasn’t come with dramatic surprises — thanks largely to years spent babysitting her sister’s children — one thing has stayed with her: how instinct overrides exhaustion.

Recalling watching her sister wake up every 20 minutes to feed her baby and wondering how she managed, Lavanya says, “I hated waking up in between my sleep. But now I understand — you don’t feel tired even when you are. That maternal instinct just takes over.

” She adds, “I took my own sweet time to take on this challenge, though it doesn’t feel like a challenge because I’m enjoying it. I always wanted to be a mom, and now I just want to enjoy every bit of it.”‘I shot while I was pregnant and no one knew’Admittedly, Lavanya completed her comeback film Sathi Leelavathi while in her first trimester — a secret she kept from the crew. “At the muhurtam itself, I was pregnant and no one knew,” she reveals. Initially underestimating the physical demands, she soon found herself battling nausea and migraines while travelling daily to the sets. “I was vomiting, I had migraines and it felt like someone shook me in a box.

Every day after the shoot, I’d go to the hospital to check if everything was fine,” she recalls.

Despite the fear, she completed the film, including a dance sequence. “That’s why I’m not doing everything with full force.” She describes Sathi Leelavathi as a modern drama that flips the traditional image of the suffering wife. “This woman knows what she wants. When her husband says he’s leaving, she’s like, ‘Who are you to leave me?’” she says, calling it an entertainer rather than a moral lesson.

‘Varun and I are best friends; we listen, we don’t bottle things up’Back at home, the workload is shared. Lavanya lights up when speaking about husband Varun Tej’s involvement.“He wants to be a part of everything,” she laughs, adding, “He’s more into it than me sometimes. I tell him, please let me do a few things!”From diaper duty to nighttime routines, she says he is fully present. “He’s equally there. Anything I need, he’s there.” This easy partnership stems from their foundation of strong communication. “Varun and I are best friends. We listen, we don’t bottle things up,” she explains, adding, “Whenever we don’t like something, we say it. The other person doesn’t get defensive. We just listen, acknowledge, and grow.”As she settles into this new rhythm, Lavanya is careful about the advice she gives other women, answering with honesty and awareness. “My advice would be different because I am privileged,” she says. - Sanjana Pulugurtha