It has been a long, almost agonising journey for Shefali Chhaya. The actress who has won accolades for her gritty performance in Ramgopal Varma's Satya has found the going hard. "I started off long, long ago with Gujarati plays. My first role on television was in Campus, but Hasratein was definitely the turning point," she says. And she is right. Shefali had to pick up the threads of Savi from where the high-profile Seema Kapoor had left off. "All the while I had played a sister or daughter or friend. This was my first lead role, and that too of a older woman. While everyone was sceptical about casting me, I convinced Ajay Sinha (the director) that my age didn't matter, it was about attitude," she says.And even after being acknowledged as a star on the small screen, her film debut turned out to be a humiliating experience. "I acted in Rangeela," she says, pauses and adds, "You'd have missed me if you blinked your eyes for a moment." Savi was the girl whose mother throws tantrumsand who is then replaced by Urmila. "On the second day, I realised what was going on and told Ramu that I didn't want his role or his money, and walked out. When I went to see the film, I was so hurt that my husband Harsh had to take me away halfway through the screening," she says. So when the same director approached her for Satya, Shefali flatly refused. "He apologised to me for Rangeela. But I was adamant and picked up a lame excuse that there was a love scene which I didn't want to do," she recalls. To her surprise, Varma cut out the scene, and with both real-life hubby Harsh and reel-life husband Manoj Bajpai "on her case", Shefali didn't have much of a choice. "Today, I am happy I made the right decision, or I might have missed being a part of one of the most brilliant films made," she says.
