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Almost Aishwarya
Everyone calls her Ash.
From some angles,
Original &nbs p;
Ashwin Kale does look like the new
Mrs Bachchan.
Her large, eager eyes, especially, have a resemblance.
There, the similarities end,
but Ashwin Kale found herself cast in a film called Aishwarya Rai .
Twenty-four-year-old Kale is three inches shorter
and a few more inches wider than the character she portrays.
She lives in an unnamed rowhouse in Nallasopara,
speaks broken English and travels by train to
work every day.
She is a choreographer and an aspiring actress
with enough self-respect to loathe
being called a version of Aishwarya.
Rai is too boring for her taste.
When small-time director Shakeel S Saifee wanted
her to play the lead in Aishwarya Rai,
he had to chase her for two months before she relented.
He had earlier approached the more popular
He had earlier approached the more popular
Ash look-alike Sneha Ullal but then he decided
Ullal would be too expensive for his Rs 1.5 crore film budget.
Saifee then saw Kale in a film called Yeh dooriyan kabhi na thi.
Her drunken brown eyes had won her a role in this
low-budget film in which she played
a divorced alcoholic mother of two.
"I looked much chubbier then, nothing like Ash,"
recalls Kale.
Yet, Saifee who is smitten with Aishwarya, was somehow
convinced that this plump girl would be perfect for the
"Yash Chopra-league"
film he had in mind.
Kale though didn't easily trust this man
Kale though didn't easily trust this man
who had made two C-grade films and talked Yashraj.
She even got her beautiful best friend to his studio in Andheri,
asking him to choose her instead.
That's when Saifee narrated the plot to them.
It is almost a remake of
Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
which Saifee feels has uncanny
similarities with Rai's real-life love affairs.
In Saifee's film, a dying Salman (Akshar Sanjay)
willingly hands over Aishwarya to Abhishek (Arun Sikarwar)
on their wedding day.
He even thought of a probable climax where
Salman gifts Aishwarya a portrait of herself,
painted with his blood, before breathing his last.
Saifee has gained the approval of the
Indian Motion Pictures Association for the film's title.
It was when Saifee assured Kale's mother that the
It was when Saifee assured Kale's mother that the
girl wouldn't end up with a duplicate-tag that
the budding actress finally went to his office to sign the film.
She was astonished when Saifee kept a blank
cheque in front of her and asked her to
fill the signing amount she expected.
"I was mentally prepared for Rs 51,000,"
recalls Saifee but Kale surprised him by asking for just Rs 1,100.
Convinced that this girl had ideals,
he happily added 2 before the four
digits and handed her Rs 21,100.
Kale though still can't understand why he liked
Kale though still can't understand why he liked
a tragedy queen like Rai.
"I can't ever be Paro.
I am a fan of Juhi Chawla.
She is like me, smiling and fun,"
says the tomboyish Kale.
Saifee got a taste of this
fun on the first day of the shoot,
which coincided with the Abhiash sangeet day.
The scene was to be shot near Amitabh's bungalow but
Kale called to say that she won't be able to make it.
Saifee was almost on the verge of tears before he got
another call from Kale saying,
"Just kidding. I am ready."
It was Kale's way of establishing that,
be it on the set or on the screen,
she would just be herself a simple Maharashtrian girl,
whose mother had advised her to uphold the family name.
Kale, who lost her stock broker father five years ago,
knows what 'family name' means
to the middle-class Maharashtrian.
Even now, Kale and her sister avoid the living room
when there are male guests.
It's always in the back of her mind
when she confidently enters a studio full of
steamy posters and suspicious-looking men.
"I have learned to be professional and practical,"
says Kale, who grew up doing Marathi plays and
choreographing Bollywood shows,
some even in foreign locations.
Kale's fortunes are now on the rise.
Kale's fortunes are now on the rise.
"I have signed three more films and a serial."
Women in the first class compartment have
suddenly started staring at her.
"I can't understand why they do that here.
Abroad, if you are caught staring,
the person would be offended as it's bad manners,"
she says.
Recently, an inquisitive lady co-passenger
asked Kale if the mehndi on her hands had anything
to do with the Abhiash wedding.
But Kale would survive India.
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