Special:Amrita Rao unplugged!!

By Subhash K Jha

Even as Vivah brings her new glory Amrita Rao snaked off last week to shoot a with her Main Hoon Na director.

Says Amrita, "It seems just the other day when Farah Khan and I had loads of fun doing Main Hoon Na. When her brother Sajid Khan called me I was so happy. I share a special relationship with Sajid and Farah.

Sajid wanted all the heroines who are his friends to be part of the song. Sajid says I'm his younger sister. The song is filmed in a pub. We all have our own little scenes, our few minutes of fame, ha ha, with Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan and Riteish Deshmukh.

I've about ten seconds each with Fardeen and Riteish. That was before the day Vivah released. So I had butterflies in my tummy."

Amrita is just back from a multi-city tour of North India. "The reviews of Vivah said otherwise," she smiles. "But the response we got in places like Jaipur, Kanpur, Faridabad and Lucknow told another story.

Anyway the critics were only doing their job. Vivah was like baby that I had. Then the neighbours decided to come and name the baby. It does feel odd when your baby is scrutinized from the outside."

In Faridabad Amrita says she communicated with 'hardcore' audience. "To see such acceptance was very heartening. Is Vivah my own Hum Aapke Hain Koun ? Wow! It's growing. When people tell me they're watching Vivah with their entire family I feel a sense of pride.

Sooraj-ji was mentally prepared for a cautious response. He was told the younger audience wouldn't take to the film. But you can't make suppositions on behalf of the public."

Amrita says she had no difficulty playing the homely cultured middleclass character. "Fortunately just before I got down to shooting Vivah I visited Mathura and Vridavan. I visited the temples, saw the girls in salwar-kameez.

So I 've seen how girls dress talk and behave in culturally rich small- towns of India. I don't find such unspoilt gentleness unnatural. Those who do, are perhaps delinked from the real India. It wasn't difficult for me to envision what Sooraj-ji narrated to me."

Amrita's character Punam appears wonderfully measured in her body and spoken language. "Sooraj-ji wanted me to convey everything in silences and hints. Initially I was confused because I had never done anything so subtle.

So I kept questioning him. Sooraj-ji is a rare director who doesn't look at shots through the video monitor. He looks straight through the camera So he knows exactly what an actor would like on screen. If Sooraj-ji wasn't there to support me I wouldn't have done half the things I did in Vivah.

He's that conductor of the orchestra who knows how to tune the actors. I had to be convinced about what I was doing for audiences to be convinced."

As for the Shahid-Amrita vibes, Amrita giggles. "Sooraj-ji transformed us into the characters Punam and Prem. Both Shahid and I know we had huge responsibilities put on us by Sooraj-ji.

Fortunately neither of us came from a background where we distracted one another from doing our work. We knew we had to work towards making the characters look real. In fact Shahid and I will definitely work together again if we get the opportunity."

What next? "Good films with good makers. As for my next release E Niwas' My Name Is Anthony Gonzalves I play a Catholic girl named Karen who is an assistant director in his films. That's my only assignment at the moment."

She jumps to the defence of the film's director. "How many director have boasted of a National award at such a young age. I'm impressed by Niwas' clarity of thought."

Post-Vivah there are excellent offers. "I know I've a responsibility towards myself and my audience. I'll have to respect that responsibility."