“Amisha Patel is still getting dressed but you can go in and wait outside her dressing room,” he instructed.
He roped us in and we walked in until we came to a big empty space flanked by the stage and a series of make-shift rooms with thin wood boards constructed in between and separate doors to ensure privacy. Signs with names were tacked on each door to signify its guest – Vyas Brothers, Riya Sen, Bipasha Basu, Aarti Chabbaria, Amisha Patel, Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Himesh Reshamiya and several others.
As we waited, making conversation with the Vyas Brothers, loud music from the auditorium indicated the start of the show and we could hear Sajed Khan’s voice carrying backstage as he opened with a few jokes. Riya Sen came out of her room, visibly nervous and fully donned in a beautiful black show costume. After horsing around and laughing with her friend, she started rehearsing her dance routine to make sure her steps were not forgotten. Aarti Chabbaria got dressed and came out in a glittery miniskirt and velvet blouse outfit and joined a small group of event volunteers to watch the ongoing show on the TV they had backstage for us. Meanwhile Akshay Kumar, deep in conversation on his cell phone, walked around until he ended up standing with us (or rather, towering over us) and pocketed his phone. After my sister and I casually took a couple pictures with the celebrities acting like it’s a normal thing we do every day, the door to Amisha Patel’s room opened and her make-up artist waved us in to interview this beautiful and talented half-Sindhi Bollywood actress.
She’s a fusion of some of India’s best – her mother’s a Sindhi, her father’s a Gujrati and her grandmother, who she loves to visit regularly in Pune, is Maharashtrian. Born on June 9, 1976 in Bombay, India, Amisha is the granddaughter of Indian freedom fighter Rajni Patel. She attended John Connon High School in Bombay as an outstanding student and proceeded to study economics at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. After graduating from the school in 1997 with distinction, her outstanding qualifications led her job-searching to be a walk in the park – she was offered a job and worked at Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest investment banks, for a while before she flew back to Mumbai to explore her creative side. “If I wasn’t an actress, I’d be a boring investment banker, probably married with two kids by now,” Amisha laughed.
Upon arriving in Mumbai, she had the urge to join a local theater troupe to indulge her creative side. Even though she was having a great time acting, she never considered making it a career until Rakesh Roshan, a prominent Bollywood producer and a dear family friend, approached her in 2000 for a role in his new movie. Rakesh wanted Amisha to star opposite his son Hrithik Roshan in a film that would introduce them both to the industry and she unhesitatingly agreed. That film, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, went on to become a successful hit and since then Amisha has had nowhere to go but up with new movie deals.
She was being signed for starring roles in movies such as Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, Badri, Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar, Kranti, Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Humraaz among several others. “All of the movies that I’ve worked on have been really close to me – I’ve learned and grown from each of them. Humraaz was very special to me as it was the first time I played a negative character. My latest film, Thora Pyar Thora Magic was also a very different character. I loved doing Honeymoon because playing a dimwit, and doing it convincingly, is quite a challenge. As for Gadar, that took a lot of study.” Her studying, hard work and dedication paid off – most of her movies have turned into big hits.
Not only did Amisha find herself…
0 comments:
Post a Comment