An interview with Rakshanda...

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."

Khan owes her look to the producers, who she says, "took trouble to make the owner of a fashion house seem like she has that kind of money." As for her body language, she generously gives the credit to her episode director, Rohit Khanna. "He knows every vein of the characters in the serial and channelises our vision in the right direction. He sometimes fine-tunes even the pitch of our voices."

"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!" The test shot was so good, it got selected as the final campaign picture.

"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. Then, while shooting for a calendar for the same designer-duo, another high-profile photographer, Ashok Salian, noticed her and she was soon the fresh-as-snowflakes face for Nivea. "Ashok made every frame look like poetry," she enthuses. "His tight shots of my face were all about attitude and happiness." Nivea was followed by Roop Milan and Kit Kat. The latter, known as the Traffic cop ad, had Khan driving away in an open convertible without knowing the 'd' of driving!

"I learnt how to survive advertising and the advertising world from Prahlad Kakkar." The famous adman-film-maker, who directed her in the Kit Kat ad, gave her the once-over and granted she was pretty…. "I have a strong suspicion you have two grey cells left," Prahlad Kakkar then observed. "Would you want to work with me and help them multiply?" As the 'pretty face' was still studying for her film and TV production course, she jumped at the offer to work 'as a flunky' with the maverick adman. "Prahlad was very clear," states Khan. " 'We are going to use you as bait to get the models out of the make-up room on time,' he told me. It was an opportunity to work with the best so I accepted."
It was a job she loved. But when it got increasingly difficult for Khan to manage shows and a job, she reluctantly bid adieu to Kakkar. However, some day, she'd love to work with him again. And…some day, she'd also love to have her own production house. "When I do have one, I won't be wearing rose-tinted glasses. I have gathered enough experience to know that you can't produce a chocolate factory from nothing," she states pragmatically.

"Veejaying is the last thing I would have imagined myself doing." After about two years of walking the ramp, Khan got a call, most unexpectedly, from director, Ken Ghosh's office, to veejay for a countdown programme on television. "It gives you a chance to express yourself much more than modelling does," exclaims the once-shy child of Alexandra Girls' Institution. "But it required a lot of confidence to deliver lines before the camera at a time when tele-prompters were unknown." And it didn't help matters much when Ghosh announced that his show didn't have a script. "I'll give you pointers and you have to carry on from there," were his words of comfort. Fortunately for Khan, who had grown up on a diet of Hindi films, she was able to deliver. "And the fact that I was bilingual helped. I can speak Hindi fluently without saying 'Hindi bolne ko sakta'," she grins. The initial nervousness done with, the glamorous model, with definitely more than two grey cells, discovered that veejaying was something that she enjoyed.

"The first time I compared a live programme, I went on stage and read my script like a newsreader." HMV asked her to write her own script for a live programme. "Having been a student of literature, that was not difficult. But holding forth before a live audience was tough!" recalls Khan. "I was so tense I did not look up from the page in front of me till the words 'Thank You' appeared." Her self critique apart, HMV called her for their next show as well. As did other event managers. "As more compering offers came in, the confidence levels increased. So did the pauses in the script. I started looking up at the audience!"

"I prefer to do roles that have a backbone." Ramp shows, anchoring, compering…it was inevitable that acting offers would sooner or later come her way. "Yes, they did. But I never wanted to act…. With time, however, I have learnt to never say never. Because every time I say it, the contrary happens," the actress states. For a whole year she resisted TV serials till friends persuaded her to give it a try. Since Kya Hadsa Kya Haqeeqat was only a two-month affair she took it on, to test the waters. "If I failed, I wouldn't do it again," she reasoned. The serial got high TRP ratings but Khan was flooded with offers of only negative characters that she promptly turned down.

"It would be nice if we didn't preach stuff that is regressive." She has refused many roles, for, as she explains, "I would find it difficult to do a character who says, 'Yes, my husband went out and had an affair but I am going to stand by him.' I would instead kick his ass to high heaven! I am not saying we are here as moral ambassadors, but if viewers are emulating our sense of style, don't you think they are emulating our values as well? Of course they are!

"Tradition is great," Khan continues in a passionate vein, "but we can't behave like we are in bondage and then glorify this fact. If we continue projecting our personalities as being ruled by marriage and dedication to the service of one man, we will destroy our sense of self-respect. It's great to put in everything to make a relationship work but how much can you forgive and forget? There are serials where men get married several times over, sometimes to their wives' sisters and best friends. What are we promoting? Morals, on the one hand, and promiscuity, on the other! This doesn't really work for me."

"I live in my denims. I think they are the best discovery after electricity." Khan doesn't feel the need to live up to her tele-image once the day's shoot is over. "I am not exceptionally feminine in my dressing, being more comfort-driven than fashion or fad-driven. I don't have too many dresses or even trousers in my wardrobe," she says. "It's only after doing a whole year of Jassi Jaisi… that I have bought a few saris, as I think they are one of the most elegant forms of dressing; but even these have stitched pleats! I am fairly chilled out as a person and don't feel the need to always look va-va-voom."

"I am getting opportunities to do things I've never done before, so it's difficult to put the breaks on at this point of time." Recently, she did a 12-day stint in London for the ICC Cup, "which was great because I had never done sports before", live shows for L'Oreal in a tour around India and dubbing for the Disney film, The Incredibles. Enjoying every moment of her multi-hued career, she reasons, "Television serials give me a chance to live other peoples' lives, while veejaying allows me to project myself as me and compering gives me a different kick altogether as I am on edge all the time. In a live event you are on your own with nobody to clean up your mess. Together, it's a perfect mix!"