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Looking for fresh pastures
Gul Panag...from 'Kashmeer' with flowers.
UNLIKE OTHERS of her tribe, former Miss India Gul Panag has no qualms in stating that she is not as gorgeous as beauty queen-turned-actress, Aishwarya Rai but takes credit for the fact that she possesses good communication skills. This can be testified by the fact that she has anchored numerous shows on TV.
Perched delicately on the sofa at New Delhi's Hotel Grand Hyatt this past week, Gul says, "I was never into full-fledged modelling. I became Miss India while I was doing my graduation in Mathematics. It gave me a celebrity status." Though, she feels now that the reach of one of her small screen shows was much more than the occasion when she emerged triumphant in the much-coveted Miss India 1999 contest. She says, "The game show `Kisme Kitna Hai Dum' was marketed better than the Miss India title."
Stepping some steps ahead, her career graph has taken her into acting in TV serials. The recently commenced serial, "Kashmeer", shown on Star Plus every week, featuring her, has 26 episodes. Directed by Suhel Tatari, the serial, though with the name "Kashmeer", has been shot in the picturesque surroundings of the hill stations Dalhousie and Dhanolti.
She justifies, "Shooting in Kashmir was fraught with great danger as a unit of 200 people would have been an easy target for militants." Understandable, but has Kashmiri culture been depicted in the serial the way it was done in the soap opera, "Gul, Gulshan and Gulfam"?
"Kashmeer" crew at ease in New Delhi.
"There has been an attempt but you must remember that we haven't shot in the Valley," says the actress. In the serial, Gul is playing the central character of Zoya.
"I am playing a multifaceted character as emotions, circumstances and events shape up my life. Basically, it is a love story. The period shown in the Valley is before the advent of terrorism, when the thinking or intellectual movement was going on," she informs. Happy noting that her acting skills have come out "spectacularly well" due to its honing while acting with accomplished co-artists of the serial like Farooq Sheikh, Suresh Oberoi and Salim Shah, Gul, who plays the daughter of Oberoi, adds more, "The story of `Kashmeer' revolves around friendship between a well-to-do Hindu and Muslim family. However, there is a change in their attitude when terrorists start creating mayhem."
MADHUR TANKHA
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