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Currying favour
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Meet Smriti Mishra, now serving one dollar curry at a cinema near you.
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Smriti Mishra seeks a slice of fame with "One Dollar Curry."
`IDEALLY Vijay Singh should have taken the likes of Preity Zinta, but he told me that he wanted a girl who could portray a very Indian looking girl, cherishing some traditional values. He thinks that I have a very strong screen presence. Though I don't find myself very traditional,' is what Smriti Mishra has to say about her role in Singh's Indo-French film One Dollar Curry, released across Delhi this past week.
Smriti plays Yamini in the film, the Indian fiancée of the protagonist played by Vikram Chatwal, who gets trapped in a situation that shows him inclined towards wine and women. She comes from India to see him in the U.S and feels betrayed. But finally she has to help him out in this comical situation. "It is a weird kind of a role," Smriti says.
The crew, mostly French, took some adjusting to. "It was initially very difficult because the whole crew was French and within three or four days, not only did I have to establish a rapport with the whole crew, but also to create a viable chemistry on screen and of course, the heat strokes were terrible there in Paris where we shot for 50 weeks." But that physical discomfort soon subsided as she found that the French "admire emotional bonding in Indian families and their inclination towards spirituality". She recalls, "It was a great feeling, for I was given utmost importance because of being an Indian."
Known in France
This graduate from Allahabad University is a known face among the French for her film Jaya Ganga that has run there for two years. The film could not be released in India. In it she plays Zehra, a dancing girl whom the protagonist loves. He takes her out of a brothel to marry her but unfortunate circumstances trap him and she commits suicide by drowning herself in the river Ganga. "It was a marvellous experience when I saw people recognising me on the roads in France," says a happy Smriti, who, however claims that she did not choose off-beat films consciously.
"I do not believe in terms like parallel or off-beat. It is just media hype. I never worked in films thinking them to be parallel or mainstream," and hence Shyam Benegal's Sardari Begum wasn't a conscious choice either. "Since I knew Kathak and since it was Benegal ji, it was worth trying," says Smriti.
Now she is ready with debut director Ruchi Narain's Kaal: Yesterday and Tomorrow, a story of three best of friends who fall in love with the same man.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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