| Nickname |
Aashi |
|
Age |
29 |
|
Star sign |
True Cancerian |
|
Character |
Madame Vyjanti
Devi aka VJ |
|
Occupation |
Computer Programmer |
|
Lives in |
Planet Earth |
|
Favourite actors |
Dev Anand, Manoj Bajpai & Abhishek Bachchan |
|
Favourite films |
Guide, Sadma & Lamhe |
|
My experience: |
It has been a wonderful experience throughout. I feel so
privileged to play such a strong, larger
than life role...it
is a dream come true. The best
thing about the VJ is that I get
to wear such beautiful heavy saris and very heavy jewellery;
I just love it (Ed's
note - it used to take you
at least an hour to get ready before and
after the show). My hair bun (Jooda)
used to be full of jewellery, flowers and decorative pins
that my friends (Leylah) used to call it ‘The Garden’.
Let me share a secret with you, it is so uncanny that
whenever I used to sit on the swing, on Vyjanti Devi’s ‘Throne’
with all the heavy sari and gold jewellery, I automatically
used to forget myself and transform into
Madame, as if I own the stage and everyone on it.
I loved every minute of working on this beautiful project
with such a talented bunch of people.
I have made so many
new, good friends and now I feel
that I do have family in UK which I didn’t have before.
During the tour, we performed at various theatres all around
the UK, we got chance to perform on some beautiful and
memorable venues, one of them was ‘City Varieties’ in Leeds,
on the very stage where Mr.
Charlie Chaplin performed himself. What
a beautiful theatre and I felt so honoured to perform on
that stage. |
|
Aspirations |
To do more theatre work and one day direct my own play |
|
What next? |
God only knows…..but after the ‘Precious Bazaar’ I do have
some theatre projects planned in Delhi (India) in
December’05 ‘Inshaallah’ |
|
BollyIdol audition |
While auditioning for the BollyIdol
I had no idea what I was getting myself into!
But I am so glad I participated
and winning it was overwhelming. My audition went
very well, judges were so supportive and understanding, the
whole procedure was so much fun. It was a
little uncomfortable because I danced
in heavy sari with pencil-thin highheels
on - but I loved every minute
of it. I wasn’t nervous (Ed's
note -yeah right!) in
fact quite excited;
straight away I was in love with Vyjanti Devi’s character
and I had a inkling that if anyone can do justice to the
VJ’s character that is going to be ME.. ME.. ME and
fortunately judges thought that too. I think I have blown
enough of my own trumpet. |
|
Advice to future applicants. |
My advice to next year’s
applicants is that to be yourself, wear comfortable clothes,
learn about yourself, what you good at and what are your
weak points and work on them. Be confident but not
over-confident, being nervous is a good thing because that
prepares you to give your best but don’t let that overshadow
your performance and believe in yourself. Good Luck! |
|
Finally |
I want to thank my director, who
is also a very good friend Samir
Bhamra for believing in me, supporting me and letting me
play the role that actually HE wanted to play!
(Ed's note - I doubt he could play it
as well as you do!) |
|
Contact |
aashiji@hotmail.com
|
