Ramp shows, tele-soaps, dubbing, anchoring…. Rakshanda Khan is, in real life, a woman of many parts. ALPANA CHOWDHURY meets the light-eyed Pathan, whose life is a whirligig of frenetic schedules drafted by the top names in the business.
In the telly world of over-dressed matrons, the stylish Mallika Seth stands apart. The brattish, spoilt character of Sony's much-watched Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, is played with panache by swishy ramp model and actress, Rakshanda Khan. So completely styled is her look that designer, Satya Paul, who has outfitted her for the serial, now has buyers asking for the pink, polka-dotted sari she wore in a particular episode or the salwar kameez with oriental lettering, in another.
Initially, her Jassi Jaisi…deal was only for two episodes where she would play a model, recounts Khan, in an encounter at a suburban lounge-bar in Mumbai. But suddenly, producer, Tony Singh, asked her if she could give them 12 days a month and play a lead part in it instead. That of Mallika Seth, one of the owners of the fashion house, around which the serial revolves. It was a role that the late Nafisa Joseph was originally slated to do, but for some unfathomable reason she had pulled out.
"I cannot say I am Mallika but a lot of women are like her, totally in love with their man…" Khan says that when she was approached for the serial, she insisted on a narration as "I didn't want to do some stupid black character. Producer, Tony Singh, gave me the low-down and I felt Mallika was a lot of fun. She is not someone you dislike though she is a spoilt, rich girl who wants everything her way…. Ultimately, she is believable and that is why she works for me."
"I give the impression of being an extrovert, but basically I am not so…. I started being the person I am today in college." Who would have thought that Khan's poised exterior hides a person who was a shy introvert as a child, one who preferred the comforting environs of her school library to the prattle of classmates? But that's how she was till she joined St. Xavier's, in South Mumbai, from where she did her graduation in English Literature, as well as a course in film and television production.
She faced the camera for her first ad campaign even before she passed out of its portals for photographer, Denzil Sequeira. "I was very lucky that my test shoot was done by such a top-notch photographer and that his model wife, Sharon Clarke, was present. She taught me how to look into the camera and how to hold the bottle of perfume that I was launching. Being the novice I was, I might have peddled it like a tin of sardines!"
"Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, asked me to model the show-stopper for their bridal collection in Delhi." All she concentrated on then was "keeping my balance on stage, loaded as I was with 14 kilos of heavily-embroidered clothes, six kilos of jewellery and some two-three kilos of tassels in my hair." Before long, Khan became a part of the big league of catwalkers.
Hindi TV Shows
Cricket
Kumkum Bhagya
