It must be her Punjabi genes, because what was supposed to be a serious interview with actor Kulraj Randhawa turned into non-stop banter about movies, fashion and very unexpectedly, about her connection with Bangalore. “I did my college here at the New Horizon College,” she reveals. “My father was in the army and got posted to Bangalore. We lived in Koramangala,” she says, pronouncing the area very correctly, sans any north-Indian inflection.
The girl hasn’t overgrown her Bangalore connection yet, thank God! That she had a wild time during college is a given. “I have only wild memories of my time here,” she says, deep-set dimples in place, but refuses to divulge any more details of the wildness. “I was new to Bangalore and because there was no 11.30pm deadline then, we had a lot of fun here,” she reminisces.
Fun management days apart, her first tryst with the arc lights incidentally happened in Bangalore. “I did my first official ramp-walk while in college here. I started getting modelling offers and even movie offers from the south.” However, her big turning point was meeting Kishore Namit Kapoor who was visiting the city to promote his acting classes. “I went to interview him and he asked me to join his acting classes because he felt that I had it in me to become an actress.” The acting guru managed to convince Kulraj and her family to head to Mumbai and get a first hand taste of facing the camera. “It was like party time for me,” she gushes about the acting classes, and slowly but surely, “I’d bitten the acting bug.”
Her debut on the small screen with the serial Kareena Kareena was like a dream come true for any aspiring actor. It’s a role that most fans remember her by, to this day. Her big break, if one may call it that however was starring with the Deols in Yamla Pagla Deewana. “I can’t say that it was my film, but the fact that I have a hit under my belt today has made my struggle a bit easier,” she says, sounding rather wise. She comes across quite secure with the way her Bollywood career is charting out. A little too much, in fact.
So, doesn’t she worry about competition? “Its not a life or death situation for me if I fail to make it here, so while there are actresses who go into depression when their films don’t work, I will be fine,” she chirpily remarks. One reckons it’s her management degree doing the talking.
Getting back to films what does she have in her kitty today? I am going to start shooting for a Hindi movie and am looking at another set up which is very interesting.” And while there are two other Hindi movies at the scripting stage, she goes off tangent saying, “I am open to anything. I am concentrating on doing films of different regions.” And her Punjabi factor comes to the fore again when she smiles and says, “I will do Punjabi films because I feel a certain commitment to my community.” Like they say, ‘you can take a Punjabi out of Punjab but you can never take Punjab out of a Punjabi.’
