SPIRIT OF INDIA—YOUTH SPECIAL
They explore every facet of creativity whether it's the buildings they envisage or the songs they form or perform on the silver screen. Whether it's an actor who has transcended mediums and languages, a little music band from Kerala that has merged elements of rock and folk music, a young filmmaker who left the US to give Bengali cinema a new lease of life or a promoter of new music talent, who has created a record label to tap desi rock, these young people have redefined cool and reinvented careers.
Take the young sales professional who swapped a fat pay packet for a tiny eco-friendly shop or the architect couple whose visionary thinking is changing the way urbanites live. From Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and Surat in Gujarat, from Ernakulam in Kerala and Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, they are burning up the screen, big and small, with their talent. Hungry for success and willing to work 24x7, they are translating random dreams into enviable lifestyles.They are the change they believe in.
PARUL CHAUHAN, TELEVISION ACTOR, 21
"The first time I Went home after becoming an actor, so many people assembled outside my house that one of the gates came crashing down."
"But I have no complaints. I've gone through a lot," she says. A revenue officer's daughter, Chauhan grew up in the small town of Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh. "My grandmother was unhappy when I was born. I was a girl and I was dark," she says. But a chance meeting with a cousin's friend changed everything. "He told me I should model as I was tall."
It took 11 months of auditions to get that fateful call from Rajan Shahi, Bidaai's producer. It's been two years since she took on the character of the dark-skinned Ragini, but Chauhan still shudders when she thinks about her days as a struggler. "I was ready to go back but my mother had given me all her savings. I had to prove myself."
Within three months of Bidaai going on air, the show became Star Plus' golden goose. With fame came fortune. And Chauhan, whose parents had struggled to make ends meet, knew her hard earned money would first be spent on them. She bought her father a WagonR and now wants to upgrade it to Honda CRV. And before she buys herself a house in Mumbai, she wants "to build a bungalow for my parents in Lucknow".
Luck by chance: Chauhan didn't audition for Bidaai but had dropped her pictures at the production house and was called for a look test. The shoot began within 15 days.
—Jhilmil Motihar
