Makeover before the makeover
If you believed Jassi was Mona Singh's television debut, here's a newsflash
Sulakshana Gupta
Pune, March 11: TELEVISION viewers who are on hold for a glimpse of the girl behind the glasses need not wait until Sony's grand Jassi unveiling. Simply tune in to B4U channel and watch the promos of the music show Bajao. Currently on air, the 60 second spot features Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin's Mona Singh in a Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde face-off.
In her saintly avatar, she's clad in a plain white outfit with long hair, while in the more aggressive image, she sports short hair and black clothes. Considering that the promo was shot last year, long before her Sony contract, it's weird that the channel waited this long to release it. Khaled Syed, programming head, B4U channel, asserts that the timing had nothing to do with the hype surrounding Jassi's makeover. ''Our promos started airing even before the new-look hoardings went up. The timing was purely a matter of coincidence,'' he says.
Apparently, back in her modelling days, Singh shot with the channel for a show called Kadak. The concept was later canned, but the promos were revamped for Bajao.
It took the graphics department at the channel a while to realise that their model was actually the Mona Singh of Jassi. Ramesh Iyer, head of the graphics team, remembers her being the very first model who auditioned for the clip, and was instantly selected.
The publicity, however, may cause Jassi's mentors some embarrassment, taking into account the manpower invested in her transformation.