On a new dance show for Zee Telugu named Aata, Lavanya Tripathi joined her sister-in-law Niharika Konidela, who’s a judge on it. A fun game by anchor Sudheer soon turned hilariously dangerous for Varun Tej Konidela, who had to explain to his sister why he didn’t pick up her call.
Niharika chides Varun Tej for not picking her call
In a new promo for the show Aata, Niharika welcomes Lavanya with a warm hug. When Sudheer jokes and asks Niharika if she took adapaduchu katnam (sister-in-law dowry) from Lavanya, he’s told he’ll be sent to jail. When he says Lavanya doesn’t know Telugu well, he’s informed that she can also curse in the language. For the unversed, the actor is from Dehradun and began working in Telugu films in 2012.
Sudheer then makes both Niharika and Lavanya call Varun to see whose call he’ll pick. He cuts his sister’s call but picks up his wife’s call after one ring. When Niharika chides him for not picking up her call, he says, “I was changing his (son Vaayuv’s) diaper.” When Sudheer remarks that he was quick to pick up his wife’s call, Varun says, “You’re neither married nor do you have kids yet, so you don’t know the problems.” Rambha and Anil Ravipudi were also guests on the episode.
Recently, Zee Telugu came under fire for inviting POCSO-accused dance choreographer Jani Master to the show with featured minors. He was invited as a judge during Valentine’s Week, and his wife, Ayesha, also joined him on the show. Numerous people took to social media to call out Jani and the channel for this move, questioning who the producer was who allowed this. The Telugu film industry was also slammed for offering him work in big projects like Peddi.
About Varun Tej and Lavanya Tripathi
Varun and Lavanya met on the sets of their 2017 film Mister and eventually began dating. The two worked together in the 2018 film Antariksham 9000 KMPH but kept their relationship mum for years. They got engaged in the presence of their families on 9 June 2023 in Hyderabad, making their relationship public. They married on 1 November 2023 in Tuscany, Italy, in a traditional ceremony. On 9 September 2025, their son Vaayuv was born.
Recently, when Chiranjeevi was criticised after the birth of Ram Charan and Upasana’s twin,s Shiva Ram and Anveera Devi, for his previous statement when he said he preferred a male heir, Lavanya came to his defence. “It’s my family. If somebody comes to my family, I will not like it,” she told the press later.



