Date: 31st May! 7:34 a.m.,
Setting: Dr. Pai Nursing Home, Dadar, Mumbai;
Actors: My Mom, Dad and Gynecologists and Nurses and a lot of anxious relatives

The Doctor delivered me and that was my first perfect mahurat shot. And ever since, I have been part of this global theatre.
A couple of years down the line, I had to decide between playing the role of a student and a teacher, I thought I would take the latter role but my parents decided on the earlier one as they thought a 3 year old would suit a students role. I went along with my parent's decision whole-heartedly.

I was enrolled at Little Flower Convent High School in Solapur, a historic city known for its great food, cotton mills and power looms. I enacted my role as a student with aplomb at the school. Acting the role of a student came naturally to me the school report cards year on year re-affirmed my status as a great student. But, my remark card was overflowing with complaints lodged by teachers and students. (Sometimes, I wondered whether this remark card was part of a larger conspiracy hatched by a section of students and teachers?)

10 years of learning gave me a thorough understanding of the global theatre and I wanted more and hence I moved to a bigger, busier and a booming city called Bombay and joined the ARTS stream at Ruia College, Matunga. The first two years just passed by; exploring the new me, the new college and the syllabus, and more the city hot spots all along making new friends. I managed to be out and standing student but managed to secure a first class during both the years.

While at college, I was approached by a photographer for a press ad campaign. I was naturally elated maybe not with the thought of doing an ad campaign but with the idea of a photographer approaching me to do a press campaign. All kinds of questions flashed my already burdened mind. Why did he approach me? Does he think I am model material? Good looking? Well, Ahem! I knew I was good looking, but to be approached for a professional ad campaign. I was flattered.

I did my first press ad campaign during the first year of senior college and what followed were a series of poster and dangler ads for greeting cards etc. I decided to make modeling my second love. My first love being college and extra curricular activities (read exploring hot city spots, restaurants and new avenues). I majored in Politics (My dad was a corporator) with a first class but by then, I had worked on my portfolio and had landed plum modeling assignments. But what I landed up with was more exciting:

I was asked to host the Disney Show along with Aashish Chowdhry(to whom i am married) and we became the first anchors to host a Disney Show in India. The show was exciting in multiple ways.

My first stint as an anchor was extremely successful and the keen learner that I was, I joined Chaitra Leo Burnett an ad agency as a model coordinator. This profile gave me an insight into every aspect of modeling, film making and styling. I worked for three years and moonlighted as a model for Ponds, Lakme, Lux, Close-Up and Clinic All Clear and Fair Lovely. I did turn down a couple of film offers during those days as I was not ready to do films and wanted to stick to modeling and styling.

While at Leo-Burnett, I was chosen super-model by none other than the most popular fashion magazine of India Gladrags. My biggest break-through came just around this time and I was chosen the brand-ambassador for BPL Mobile India's leading mobile service provider.

During 1999-2000 the dot com bubble, Not that I am a tech geek, but my entrepreneurial spirit awakened and I decided to launch 1upwoman.com a woman's portal that included fashion, styling, advise, news and e-shopping etc. It was all exciting and I hired 8 people and began the web site development. The dot com bubble busted and eight months of hard work and my investments into the portal went down. I was extremely happy with the effort I put in along with my employees. However, I had to take a decision of closing down the portal; We tried and failed but the experience was exhilarating and the moment I get an opportunity I will re-launch the portal. What was important to me was not success or failure, but the fact that I tried and gained so much.

My BPL Mobile (MOTS) campaign was extremely successful and not only did BPL Mobile add more users to their service, but also enhanced their talk time. (he he he! am I sounding like a spokesperson for BPL Mobile?). The campaign was plastered all across the country; on hoardings, banners, product package, news papers and flyers and translites and just about everywhere. It was difficult for me not to see me every mile. So how could film producers stay away?

Tips Music, a popular Indian music company decided to launch me in one of their music videos to be sung by the famous Hema Sardesai, Co-incidentally, Aashish was to co-star with me. This was to be my first experience at music videos. The song and the music video Sajna Sajna went on to become a big hit and I was floored with offers to do music videos.

During the same time, Baweja films, makers of popular movies viz. Qayamat etc offered me the lead role in Yeh Kyaa Ho Rahaa Hai' to be directed by Hansal Mehta a great director. The movie was great fun and I made a lot of friends and learned a lot about several aspects of acting. The movie appealed to the urban populace and didn't click the way it was expected. But I was appreciated by critics, family and friends. This movie led to several firsts - stage performance during popular film awards, invitations to judge competitions etc., besides being approached by several production houses and producers for films.

I did look at several scripts and decided to take up Shaadi Ke Laddoo as my next film. It's a fun movie and I have a good role in the movie besides being paired with Aashish (this was strategic as against co-incidence). The movie is directed by Raj Kaushal and has Sanjay Suri, Mandira Bedi and others as my co-stars.

I have heard over 6 scripts and have a couple of projects in the pipeline. Do drop by often and I promise you more stories, news, and gossip. Isn't that what the film industry all about? (keep smiling until then)