Health in your hands

For the past nine years,the 33-year-old Turkish actress has been a part of the NGO Samarpan Foundation,which works for the underprivileged across the country. Burcu herself is visiting Chandigarh to work with women and children in various institutes,and has held a one-day workshop for women in Burail jail.

“At 24,I had it all,fame,money,people who loved me,photographs on covers of top magazines. I thought that it was all that it took to make one happy,but I was so unhappy that I began to seek happiness beyond it all,” says Burcu,who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She found her answer during a trip to Goa. “It was a holiday and it changed my life. I met my master,and came back,bag and baggage. Ever since,I have been working with Samarpan as a volunteer in various capacities,teaching candle-making in villages and cities across India,” she says.

Apart from a television advertisement for Videocon,she has stayed away from acting. “I’m tempted to do theatre,but plays here are very different from what I did in Turkey,” she says. Back home,she performed in American plays,adapted with a Turkish flavour. “I acted in some productions like Walls of Honour,the Village,and Seven Women besides some musicals. The stage gave me wings and the freedom to experiment and reinvent,” says Burcu.

Television audiences would remember her as the anchor of Best Life,a show she did for more than three years for Turkish Television. “I would interview and travel with the most famous people of Turkey — actors,models,chefs,writers,rock stars. We would shoot at rock concerts,airports,restaurants,film studios and,by the end of it all,I was not only anchoring it,but also putting it all together,” she recalls. Roles in films came easy after the success of the TV show,and she collaborated with her friend,a comedian,to do several films in Turkish.

But,in a jiffy,she is back to the present,talking to the women and children she meets. “Candle-making is a simple technique,with hardly any investment,” she tells slum children at a workshop in Panchkula,where she is teaching the art of making diyas.