Saakshi Tanwar gets nostalgic

For a lot of actors, the walk to stardom has not been easy. But for Saakshi Tanwar, who has become the bhabhi of the nation, it wasn’t that difficult.

Saakshi, a student of Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi was perusing a diploma course in software for three-and-half years. And like a diligent student, she was gung-ho about civil services and seriously preparing for that until something happened.

“One fine day, a friend called me and asked whether I was interested in hosting a show. I was puzzled. She told me that her producer wanted someone who could speak good Hindi and had a decent face. My friend was hosting the show for DD and her co-host hadn’t turned up. It was an eleventh hour call. Thinking of no harm, I went ahead and did it,” Saakshi says.

And thus began her journey to stardom. She started hosting shows on a temporary basis and that made way for a good amount of pocket money.

And then finally big break came in the form of the serial Rajdhani. “Director Gurbir Singh Grewal offered my first lead role and things changed drastically,” she says.

She began shooting from Delhi. Slowly, in between all this her studies took a backseat. And the reactions from her family were quite varied. “My father was very supportive but my mother was a little reluctant. While doing the show, I started writing the script for Bhanwar, a show on real life stories. I realised over time that what I was doing was not for pocket money; it was more of exploring my creative side,” she adds.

After this stint, she came down to Mumbai for a few days. “I was supposed to do a show which was produced by Kunal Kohli and Raveena Tandon. But it never took off. Then one day I went to the Balaji office with a friend who had to collect a cheque from them. That’s when Ekta’s maasi Nirmala Sood spotted me. She wanted my photographs and in no time I bagged the lead role in Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii,” she says.

Interestingly, she did not want shift her base from Delhi to Mumbai and turned down the offer. “I was a little scared to move to Mumbai. I put up different conditions to politely turn down the offer. Surprisingly, Ekta agreed to all the conditions and thus began the journey of Parvati bhabhi,” she ends.