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First cut Nikita Anand follows the tried and tested beauty pageant-Bollywood route

Films weren’t on her agenda soon after winning the Miss India crown in 2003, she says.

Nikita was busy with anchoring and then enrolled herself in theatre workshops.

“I wasn’t ready to get into acting. I hadn’t done any groundwork. Today, I feel more with it and prepared for the film industry. Theatre and cinema are different media but finally, it’s all about acting. I participated in theatre workshops with the National School of Drama and it helped me understand the basics,” she says. She has been met with “you too?” questions on her entry into the film industry.

Nikita defends herself, saying, “So what if many beauty pageant winners have done it before? It’s true that modelling gives you a platform. Entry into films is a natural progression. I have no qualms in saying I am another of the former Miss Indias entering films.”

She signed Prakash Jha’s production “Dil Dosti Etc” in 2006. She describes “Dil Dosti Etc” as a “young, campus story that reflects the younger generation of today.” Nikita has seen the rushes of the film and is reluctant to be a judge of her own performance. “When I see trailers of other films I am quick to point out what’s good and what’s not. But when it comes to my own film, I am too involved in it to try and analyse how I’ve done.”

Talking about shooting for the project, she recalls mimicking her director Manish Tiwari in the company of Shreyas Talpade. “Imaad was the shy and reserved one; we had to pull him out of his shyness. Shreyas and I got along well.”

But it was Prakash Jha who had the last laugh: “An assistant director (AD) used to follow me wherever I went and stand beside me. Then, Jha handed over a love letter saying the AD had written it for me and even read it aloud. I was thoroughly embarrassed. “It took me a while to realise it was a prank and that Jha himself had written it.

The entire unit knew about it, except me. Don’t let Jha’s serious looks fool you; he has quite a sense of humour.” While producer Prakash Jha calls Nikita the surprise package of Bollywood, Nikita wants to wait and watch before signing her next project.

SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO

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