As told to Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 20, 2019)

I started my career as a child artiste in the 1997 comedy Chachi 420, playing Kamal Haasan sir and Tabu ma’am’s young daughter Bharti. To meet me, Kamal sir had to impersonate a nanny, Srimati Lakshmi Godbole. I didn’t like acting much at the time, perhaps because I was the only kid on the set and being surrounded by adults all the time is no fun. Also, shooting schedules tend to get delayed.

The following year, I did One 2 Ka 4 which featured four kids (With Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla in the lead). That was more fun but it was only when I stepped into my teens that I decided to give acting a serious shot. Even though I had been working since I was a child, entering the industry as an adult was a completely different ball game. I didn’t have a concrete plan in place. It was just that the family wasn’t doing well financially, and watching my siblings earn money, I wanted to contribute to household expenses too and acting was all that I knew.

Along with acting, I kept trying my hands at different things around films. It didn’t matter if it was behind-the-scenes, like photography or cinematography. Since professional courses are expensive, I decided to learn on the go. Back then, my brother used to work at a studio that shot wedding pictures. I went there and told them that I wanted to be a photographer. Since I didn’t know anything about handling cameras, they offered me an internship. I learnt photography through trial-and-error, with a tip or two from the seniors. I would fidget with the camera, figuring out what works and what doesn’t while I shot weddings. And over time, I slowly got picture perfect.

To learn cinematography, I assisted a person who used to shoot ad films. I approached him in the same manner, asking to learn. He told me to help him out and learn on the job. I enjoyed the process but it is very technical and required a lot of expertise. You have to know what kind of light works for a particular scene, what camera angle makes the actor look better. You can completely change the mood of a scene with the use of a camera. However, we could only do two projects together.

All this while, I used to religiously go to auditions. While I was working on my second project as a cinematographer, I was shortlisted for Dangal. And that was the end of my career behind the lens.

But I still enjoy taking pictures. Photography has become a hobby. As for cinematography, it involves a lot of technicalities and isn’t something that I would want to pursue at the moment. Right now, I just want to be an actress.