| Even though he's not being harassed by crude smses and calls like Tassnim Sheikh, Ashish Nayyar has his own tale about an obsessive fan.
The actor, who plays the business tycoon Dushyant Sehgal in Zee's Tumhari Disha (popularly called DK), has a large fan following — particularly female. Lied about being a journalist
It all began in November last year. I first received a call from a 'journalist' called Priyenka Sharma claiming to be from a leading daily in Delhi. She wanted me to answer some questions and asked for my email ID.
She also claimed that she got my mobile number from my production house. So I gave her my email ID, received her questions and mailed her my replies along with some old pictures of mine. (I refused to answer some clichd questions and some personal ones.) She became Disha Sehgal
In a couple of days, I received a mail from a girl called Disha Sehgal (yes, with the same name as the lead heroine in my serial Tumhari Disha!!). She informed me that a 'DK fan club' had been formed on the site called 'Bollyteens.com' and 'India-forums.com'.
Not bothering to find out where she got my email ID from and not making any connection to the journalist I previously interacted with, I replied to her mail, and even (I still can't believe I did this!) attached the interview I had done with Priyenka Sharma!! This marked the beginning of my correspondence with my biggest fan.
She confessed that Disha was in fact Priyenka
When I checked with Priyenka about the interview, she remained evasive saying it had appeared in some edition.
At the same time I started getting friendly with Disha and she would write updates about me under the name Disha77 in India-forums. However all of a sudden, Disha made a confession that she was Priyenka Sharma and even posted the entire interview along with the photographs I had sent her on the website. Things took a bad turn...
Disha informed me that she had created a separate Yahoo email ID for me to handle my 'fan mail'. At first she refused to give me the password.
Thinking that she was just pulling my leg, I insisted. I immediately changed the password, but unfortunately not the 'secret word' in my personal info.
The next time I tried to check my mail, I found that she had changed the password again! And now she has started refusing to answer my calls or smses!
Suddenly, I found out on India-forums that some of my fans were claiming to have received emails from me, even though I hadn't sent a mail to any of them. She had virtually taken over my identity and had started pretending to be me! Betrayal of trust
I decided not to report this since she really had been a good, supportive fan. I guess, she just got too carried away and lost control. But I still get upset thinking about someone else writing e-mails under my name.
It was an invasion of my privacy and a betrayal of my trust. This is the virtual friendship, which I had with Disha, I don't even know if it existed in the first place. tushar.joshi@mid-day.com | 
Tum Se Tum Tak
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