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Suchitra Pillai
The small screen’s glam doll
Be it modelling, radio plays, theatre,
live shows compering, television 
anchoring,
veejaying, radio campaigns, serials or movies, Suchitra Pillai has done
them all. With such varied portfolio of work Suchitra can certainly be
called a versatile personality. And having done different things in different
media solely on the basis of her inner strength and confidence, without
sounding pompous Suchitra says she can make things happen for her. With
a definite career agenda, she has the plans to work in the mainstream
as well as off-beat Hindi films. But that’s for the future.
Currently she is occupied with serials Raahein and Hip Hip Hurray and
she is also anchoring two movie-based shows which are being telecast on
cable channels in the USA.
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I would love to work
with
directors like Govind Nihalani), Deepa (Mehta) and (Shyam) Benegal simply because of their different approach to filmmaking. I also would not mind working in crass commercial Hindi cinema though my first priority is parallel cinema . |
Of the two on-air serials, Suchitra is more excited about Raahein which
has her playing Reema Nath, a smart businesswoman who is out to take revenge
against her ex-husband. “Actually she is quite a bitch,” reveals
Suchitra who loves her role because it has shades of white and grey.
“While on the one hand she wants to get even her ex-husband, on the
other she has a beautiful relationship with Shefali Chhaya who confides
all her problems and dilemmas in Reema Nath.” Another reason for
liking the role is that while she has done lot of episodic work, Suchitra
says she has got the best compliments for her role in Raahein.
In Hip Hip Hurray also Suchitra plays a woman of substance. Playing a
physics professor to 12th standard students, she is very popular among
her students. But the role also explores her personal life. Says Suchitra,
“Alak Nanda is a modern and extremely independent-minded woman who
is in love with a man who leaves her to fend for herself when she is pregnant.
But instead of going for an abortion, she decides to keep the child and
be a single parent. So the role has a bite and definite graph.” But
while in Hip Hip Hurray she is not seen in every episode, in Raahein she
is seen every week and what is keeping her in high spirits is the compliments
she is getting for her performance.
An electronics engineer, Suchitra had a very eventful life in school and
college with lot of extra-curricular activities and amateur theatre. But
after she got her degree, she got married and went to London to live with
her husband. But despite a degree in engineering which could have got
her a good job, Suchitra opted for a career in modelling, theatre and
radio.
While modelling assignments came her way in bits and pieces, it was through
a modelling agency that she got to do a French film, Le Prix D’Une
Femma (The Price Of A Woman) which was based on the life of a South Indian
girl who becomes a dowry victim. Needless to say, Suchitra essayed the
lead role. Next followed an English film called Guru In Seven. Besides
radio plays, theatre and radio campaigns continued. But Suchitra says
the volume of work was not enough to keep totally busy though she was
enjoying what she was doing.
Six years after marriage, her husband shifted his base to Tokyo. But not
finding anything to do there in her career-related field, Suchitra came
to Mumbai in 1997 to meet her family as well as to see what’s happening
here in the field of media. At a party, she met the then general manager
of Channel [V] Jules Fuller and in the course of conversation Suchitra
told him that if she is not seen on Channel [V] the nit’s the channel’s
loss. “I knew I could be a good VJ and what I needed was a good break,”
she recounts. “So I had no hesitation in telling Jules what I said.”
Thus followed a screen test and within no time Suchitra became Channel
[V]’s popular VJ with shows like Red Alert, Simply South, Indian
Top Ten, Cabaret Cabaret and Dance TV.
Though she was an employee of Channel [V], the channel allowed to work
outside and Suchitra started doing club music shows and theatre and later
serials too. It was her cousin Parvati Balgopalan who gave her break with
a six-episode role in Margariat which was followed by episodic work for
Saturday Suspense, X-Zone and Star Bestsellers. With her career taking
off in Tellywood, Suchitra decided to stay in Mumbai for good and proceeded
for legal separation from her husband. Ask her why the marriage broke
and she says it was not because of anything else but the distance and
work opportunities here. “First distance made us part ways,”
she confesses. “And second I didn’t feel the need to go back
to my husband. But we are good friends. In fact, I owe a lot to my ex-husband
because he gave me the freedom to do what I wanted and whatever I am today
is because of him.”
While Suchitra had great time with Channel [V] which opened for her the
doors of an exciting career and also gave her a big canvas to showcase
her talent, she was pointblank asked to quit the channel when its new
management inducted fresh faces as VJs. “I would have quit on my
own if I was given a hit but the way I was asked to quit was not right,”
she says regretfully. “It was an unceremonious exit after a great
association of two and half years.”
But now she has no regrets because she is quite busy with serials, music
videos and live events. She would love to continue doing television since
it figures quite high on her list of priorities at the moment. But she
also has the dream of working in movies, parallel and commercial, whenever
it comes true. “I would love to work with directors like Govind (Nihalani),
Deepa (Mehta) and (Shyam) Benegal simply because of their different approach
to filmmaking,” says Suchitra who also would not mind working in
crass commercial Hindi cinema though her first priority is parallel cinema
because, as she explains further, “It’s a big challenge to work
in realistic cinema because it’s much more difficult to portray real
life than make-believe larger-than-life mainstream cinema characters.”
She has a couple of tele-shows in the offing. One is a comedy for the
Adhikari Brothers and the other is a magazine show which she is anchoring.
So things are going great guns for this hardcore optimist and extrovert
lady who has made things happen her way simple because of “my confidence
and ability to do different things”.
AL Chougule