A finger in every pie
Television's bad boy Ansh Gujral is waiting to make it big in things other than TV
Akashdeep Saigal.
AKASHDEEP SAIGAL has an interesting bio-data. A TV artiste, a film actor, model, a state-level former football player, graduate in Egyptology, a sound engineer, a winner of Gladrags Manhunt contest, supermodel of the year 1998 and documentary filmmaker.
Soon, he will also take up the vocation of a scriptwriter!
All of 29, this pony-tailed Mumbaiite, is admittedly "on both the hate and love list" of people these days. Recognisable on the street more by his reel name Ansh Gujral in the serial Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on Star Plus than his real one, Akashdeep says that often children come to his house in Mumbai after school for autographs and housewives accost him at many places only to tell him that they hate his character but love him as an actor.
Instant success
"This is success. For one screen role, I turn people's heads on the road," says this actor. Though he began with films - featuring in Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Supari, which sank without a trace, - television did not appease him initially.
"I had got TV offers before but always had this mental block that it was not as big as films," admits Akashdeep. Soon after Supari, Balaji Telefilms called him for an audition.
"I thought it was for a film role since Balaji Telefilms is also into film-making. When they told me about Ansh Gujral's role, I took time to decide."
Playing a negative role in his small screen debut was what made him ponder, but then, "it was after all a role which was challenging enough. So, I went ahead."
Despite basking in the glory of "recognition and appreciation" in the role of the lost and found scheming son of Tulsi and Mihir Virani in Kyunki... , Akashdeep is firm about not taking up another television role.
"I do not want to be branded as a TV artiste. I want to do more things in life," he reasons. Ansh's role, he says, "would roll only for a few more months."
Waiting for "a good film script" to come his way, he is, meanwhile busy giving finishing touches to a film script that he has "great plans for."
"I might look for a director or might look for a director in me. I also might direct me," he states.
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
