Building on Bollywood

She is armed with a degree in Law and Media Studies,has over 15 years of training in Bharatanatyam and is fluent in multiple languages. Pallavi Sharda is the latest Non-Resident Indian to try her luck in Bollywood. The lissome 23-year-old from Melbourne,Australia,will be debuting opposite actor Manoj Bajpayee in the folk tale-inspired Bollywood feature film,Dus Tola,which releases this week. The film also marks the directorial debut of Ajoy Verma.

In the film,set in a fictitious village in North India where residents live a peaceful existence cut off from the rest of the world,Sharda portrays the role of a chirpy village dance teacher who trains the village kids in Bharatanatyam in her run-down studio. “My family was expecting to see me as a glamourous diva in my first film,but that was not meant to be. I was constantly being dabbed with water on my face after every take,to show that I perspire after teaching Bharatanatyam,” laughs Sharda,who has also won the Miss India-Australia pageant earlier this year.

Sharda relocated to Mumbai last year and used theatre as a stepping stone into Bollywood. She worked in Raell Padamsee’s play,1888 Dial India which was staged in Mumbai last year.

Later she enrolled herself in a social media programme in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi,which she never joined,when she was cast

by Verma in his movie. “I thought,if nothing else I would pursue the course in Jawaharlal Nehru University until I received a good offer from someone,” she explains.

The film was shot in January this year at Wai,Mahabaleshwar,and Sharda says she had no difficulty in blending in with the cast.

“I have been brought up in a very North Indian household in Melbourne and have grown up on a diet of Hindi cinema. Initially,it was daunting to act opposite Manoj,but things eased up later,” she says.

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Incidentally Sharda’s other film,a cross-over project,Walkaway directed by debutant Shailja Gupta,releases in the US next week.

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