Less than a month ago, actor Shefali Jariwala met her first-ever collaborators, director duo Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, to discuss the possibility of creating something as memorable as their first collaboration — the 2002 Kaanta Laga music video, a remixed version by musician Harry Anand. A night after the actor’s untimely demise, we spoke with them as they walked down the memory lane to remember the ‘Kaanta Laga girl’.

“When we met her just 20 days ago, she told us how proud she was that Kaanta Laga remained iconic even after two decades. She wanted to do something new that could stay memorable for another 20 years,” shared a sombre Sapru. As captivating and vibrant as the video was, it also stirred a huge controversy, with many calling it “too bold”. But Jariwala became an overnight star. “Shefali was fresh, radiant, and gave that song its life,” Rao added.

Recalling how they cast the 19-year-old engineering student for the song, Rao said, “Vinay and I were driving somewhere in Mumbai when we spotted a girl sitting behind her mother on a scooter. As she passed by our car, we both looked at each other and said, ‘She’s perfect! She looks like a doll.’ That’s how we found Shefali. Her look in Kaanta Laga was actually inspired by a Japanese doll. She wasn’t a trained dancer or actor, but she worked incredibly hard to get the steps and look right. She was like family to us — bubbly, chirpy, and full of positive energy. That’s how we’ll always remember her,” Rao smiled.

Filmmaker-writer Farhad Samji, who got acquainted with the late actor much later, shared Rao’s sentiments. Samji directed her in her maiden series, Baby Come Naa (2018). His experience working with Jariwala was so good that he ensured she was part of his next series, Boo: Sabki Fategi (2019), as well.

“She was a very good friend. She was the kind of person who approached life with a positive spirit,” he says, adding that her exuberance was hard to miss. “I read somewhere that she had said, ‘I want to be remembered as the Kaanta Laga girl.’ That was her, living life on the front foot and with an abundance of positivity.”

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Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, who directed Shefali Jariwala’s Kaanta Laga music video, said, “She was like our baby, like our own child. We mentored her because we believed in her, and she trusted us. This morning, when we woke up to the news that the Kaanta Laga girl is no more, all the memories came flooding back – memories of a life and a journey we started together 22 years ago. She had come to our office just two weeks ago. She said, ‘Let’s make a new plan for life. I’m 40 now, and I want to start something fresh.’ We are shattered, it feels like we’ve lost a member of our own family.”