Gurusha is in top gear

She is definitely no glamour-puss, nor is she a classic beauty. But with a few swift strokes of the grease-paint brush she does manage to look fairly attractive. Her good screen presence makes up for the lack, any way. And that is precisely what has established her as an actress on the small screen.

Meet Gurusha Kapoor who saw success at the age of 15 with Tara and Shatranj. Then, she suddenly vanished from the tele-screen for nearly two years. There were rumours then that she had quit acting and was joining a channel. It was also said that she is not getting work because of her star tantrums and high price.

But the rumours vanished into thin air when Gurusha made a quiet entry in Raahein last year, followed by Aur Phir Ek Din and Wilayati Babu. And now she is all over the television screen with five shows which include one daily soap, three weeklies and one film news-based programme which she is anchoring.

She doesn’t hesitate to admit that she owes her success, name, fame and fortune to Raman Kumar who, in the industry jargon, is her godfather. Elaborates Gurusha, "I came to Mumbai because of Ramanji. I became an actress because of him and whatever I am today is because of him. So I can never dare to question him or discuss my role with him. I will always be ready to do any role that he offers me. He can even make me stand in a corner without giving me a single dialogue for any number of episodes he wants to."

Gurusha was not new to acting or, for that matter, to television when she started doing Tara at the age of 15. She started acting at the age of eight in serials like Puravee, Amir Khusro and Basanti. While at school, she joined Barry John’s experimental theatre group and acted in some serious plays like Animal Farm, Janpath Kiss, Anokha Rahasya, Idgah and Superman Payhnon Pe. The experience gave her confidence and she overcame her stage fear.

But Gurusha says she didn’t aspire to be an actress. What she was more interested in then was stage direction, thanks to a strong theatre tradition in her family. But it so happened that when she was in her tenth standard she wasn’t allowed to appear for her board exams because she had ducked the pre-board school exams. As a result, she had nothing to do for almost four months. Raja Bundela, a close family friend, recommended her name to Raman Kumar who was then in search of a young face to play Devyani in Tara. And Raman Kumar signed her on for the role which Gurusha says she thought would not last long. "So I agreed to play Devyani thinking that after earning some quick money I would back in Delhi to resume my studies," she recalls.

But Gurusha got it all wrong. As the serial became very popular, Devyani developed into a major character and she was compelled to abandon her studies and stay in Mumbai for good as things started happening on the career front. With instant popularity, offers started coming her way in a steady stream for pilot episodes and Gurusha says she did more than 20 pilots for the "kitchen and pocket money". While Tara was still on air, she started doing Raman Kumar’s Shatranj.

With new-found stability in her career, Gurusha thought she had reached a stage from where there was no looking back for her. But she was wrong again as in 1997 Zee axed Tara and Shatranj. And Gurusha was suddenly without work as none of the pilots she had done made it to the airwaves.

She candidly admits that for nearly one and half years her life and career were in shambles. "There was a lot of chaos in my life," she confesses. "Nothing moved on the career front and on the personal front too, I faced a lot of problems. What compounded the matter further were the rumours." Finally, in December 1998, she saw a flicker of light at the end of the dark tunnel. She started shooting for Manish Goswami’s daily soap Kartavya and close on the heels followed Raahein which came on air first.

While her all time favourite is Tara, Gurusha’s current favourite is Kartavya which has her in the role of a manipulative maid-servant who goes on to become the daughter-in-law of the family, creates all the chaos and also throws her in-laws out of the house. "Though an outright negative role, it’s a very strong character which demands good performance," beams Gurusha whose next favourite show is Raahein where she plays Vinay Jain’s close friend and eventually falls in love with him. And in Aur Phir Ek Din she plays the other woman.

Also on air from March 5 on Zee is Farooq Masudi’s Kasak where again Gurusha plays the other woman who comes in the life of the happily married Suresh Oberoi and creates problems. "This is another good and very powerful role," smiles Gurusha who plays an Army Major in Tujh Pe Dil Qurban which is coming on Sony from March 17.

Shooting almost everyday and with everything in place on the career front and cootchie-coo romance with her beau Kapil on life is a pretty smooth journey for Gurusha who forsees a definite upward growth in her career graph.

A.L. Chougule