He used to tell shaayaris: Deepal Shaw on Nirmal Pandey

It is a memory that she’d rather not talk about it — Deepal Shaw is the heroine of Nirmal Pandey’s last film Vikalp. Deepal says that Nirmal — who left the industry in shock when he died of a massive heart-attack on February 18 —was hale and hearty till the last day of the shoot.

“It came as a shock when I heard that he had a heart attack. On the sets he was very jovial and he would tell us shaayaris and dohas. He was a man of very fine taste. My casting director was telling me that even three days before he died, he was jovial and said ‘hi’ to him on the road,” says Deepal.

Deepal adds that she is still pained to see her full-fledged role reduced to a mere 25-minute track in her last film Right Ya Wrong (also starring Sunny Deol and Irrfan Khan). “The director felt that the length of the film needs to be shortened. And of course, the axe fell on me because it was a cop-drama. Besides, the thriller scenes wouldn’t have been chopped. Whatever be it, I am happy with the way the critics have noticed me even though I had a very small track.You really feel good that at least people have noticed you at the end of the day,” she adds. Deepal says she is stuck in the ‘glam doll’ image after her music videos were an instant hit and she was flooded with offers where she would have to show skin and do a few matkas and jhatkas. But things have changed after just one film. “It was A Wednesday. The script was so powerful that I wouldn’t have hesitated to play that terrorist’s (another character in the film) I would have been noticed by everybody, it really changed my (professional) life forever,” she ends.