Dancing Star-Chang -interview

How are you celebrating your win?
I am still interacting with the media and haven't had the time to celebrate. I have plans of going on a holiday, three, in fact, one with my girlfriend Monali (Thakur. She was a fellow contestant on Indian Idol and is now a playback singer), with whom I haven't been able to spend time at all since Jhalak... started, one with my family and another with my friends. I am hoping I will be able to manage it.

What were your feelings when you were declared the winner?
I was very happy –– all the hard work that I had put in through the months had finally paid off.

For someone whose dancing was very poor in the beginning, the turnaround has been amazing.
I was the worst dancer on the show. The starting was pretty disappointing. My first round was disastrous and my partner had to do a lot to motivate me. There was some improvement in the second and third rounds but still I had my share of goof-ups. I would screw up with the steps but it was somewhere in the fourth round that we sort of blossomed. Judges appreciated the concepts that we are trying and the kind of dancing we were attempting. In the street-dance round, Remo complimented us saying we did it differently. It gave us a lot of inspiration. That's when we took off and never looked back.

Unfortunately, your triumph is mired in a bit of controversy that attributes your win to you being a Sony discovery.
I guess it was expected. While it's true that I am a Sony discovery and I owe the channel a lot, the success has nothing to do with it. If either Yana (Gupta) or Sushant (Singh Rajput) had won, they also would have had to face some kind of backlash. It happens whenever somebody wins. In fact, towards the fourth and fifth round when I started dancing well, the Sony guys were joking 'Oh! no, what if you win, people will suspect us!' (Laughs).

What prompted you to take up the show?
Initially, I had refused it because I am very uncomfortable dancing. I wanted to learn for personal reasons but not on TV where people will see my goof-ups. Then I had second thoughts. I thought that as an artiste, I have to take up challenges though here I must confess that after the disastrous first round, I thought of leaving the competition. On hindsight, I am glad I didn't.

How is Monali reacting to your win?
She is extremely happy. She herself is a great dancer and has been trying to drag me for her salsa socials for long. So far, I had gone only for one out of the 30 times she's called me. Now she's happy that I am not as conscious as I used to be.

Singing, acting and dancing, what next?
There's still a lot to do and I am not really sure what is in store. There will be a lot of surprises in life. I enjoy singing and acting, which are poles apart but equally satisfying.

You have anchored a horror reality show The Chair. Tell us how the experience was.
Honestly, I went into the show as a big sceptic. And of the eight episodes I did, I felt spooked only twice, once when we shot at Gujarat and another in Rajasthan. In Gujarat, we were shooting in a huge abandoned place, a part of which was re-opened as a school.

Believe it or not, in the daytime both the scriptwriter and I felt that somebody was following us. I really freaked out. The second time happened in the middle of a schedule when some contestants started getting hallucinations. Even I was shaken and felt something was out there.

After Badmaash Company, we haven't seen you in films.
I was called for some auditions but they were similar to what I had done in Badmaash Company. At times I was offered good roles, but there was no financial backing on the script.