New Look

Growing up in the late 1980s in Delhi,actor Swara Bhaskar had a favourite pastime — watching the film music programme Chitrahaar on Doordarshan twice a week. “I loved watching heroines running around trees. It was here that the seeds of my love for acting were sown,” she recalls. Bhaskar,25,is living her Bollywood dream; on August 27,her film,Madholal Keep Walking,will finally hit the screens after a year’s delay.

The film,which also marks the directorial debut of Mumbai-based Jai Tank,tells the story of a private security guard named Madholal,played by Subrat Dutta,whose life is torn apart by a bomb blast in the city. Bhaskar plays Madholal’s daughter,a young college girl. “The film offers a poignant look at a city which is considered to be the financial capital of the country,as well as salutes the undying spirit of the people of Mumbai,” she says.

Bhaskar began to take reading lessons from a maid in order to get the diction right. “But I was asked by my director not to do so. Since the message of the film is more about the human spirit,there is no amplification of my dialogue and we have given the film a natural treatment,” explains the actress,who shot for 25 days at locations such as a Kandivali chawl and suburban train stations.

The actor’s experience on stage — she was part of Delhi’s theatre circuit for two years before moving to Mumbai — came in handy too.

This is not the first time that Bhaskar has faced the camera. In 2007,she acted in Pravesh Bhardwaj’s Niyati,about groom abduction in Bihar in the 1980s. She has also co-starred with Kangana Ranaut in Tanu Weds Manu. Both films are yet to release. Meanwhile,she is waiting to be offered a role where she is “running around trees”.