Nethra Raghuraman
On the Express Train to Stardom
Meena Sharma met the model who took the Bhopal
Express to reach her ultimate destination – films – and discovered
that Nethra is an amazingly well read, smart and intelligent for a
small-town girl.
When she left her
little dream home to become a model, Nethra never thought that she’d
actually be working with names such as Shyam Benegal, Gulzar and Mani
Rathnam. But destiny, as they say, has its own ways…
After a three-year
stint in modelling, Nethra was offered her first film. With her
sultry, dusky looks and endless legs, no one really thought she’d be a
hit. But Nethra surprised everyone by surpassing expectations in her
first venture, Thakshak, followed by Bhopal Express.
"But that doesn’t
mean I’ve been resting on these two films. I want to do cinema with
Shyam Benegal, Santosh Sivan, Gulzar, Mani Rathnam and Govind Nihalani
all over again.
It was a dream come
true when one day I heard a message on my voice mail from Nihalaniji,"
she gushes.So unbelievable did she find it that Nethra took her own
sweet time to call him.
"It was only after I
met him that things fell perfectly in place. And it was great for me,
because I started off with films like Thakshak and Bhopal Express,
because although they do not fit into the mainstream, this is the
cinema I love," she says.
But she has been
rather active otherwise as well. Being an item girl can be an easy
task. Nethra has done two music videos, one with Sukhwinder for a film
Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachao that has Arshad Warsi and Rekha.
And the other one is
with Rachel Reuben for Penaaz Masani. And she is very excited about
them both.
"This one is the
whole story of Sliding Doors encapsulated in a music video of about 45
seconds! I play both the characters and it was a challenge for all of
us," she says.
Rahul Bose and Kay
Kay have been her co-stars in the past, and she admires Rahul’s work a
lot. And Bhopal Express happened on the day she gave her first shot
for Nihalani’s Thakshak.
"God has been more
than kind," she says of her natural progression from the ramp to
cinema.
Of the two when asked which one she
finds better, Nethra is diplomatic in her reply.
"Both have their own charm. I feel that after
modelling, you must move to acting. It’s natural," she says.
What next, you’re compelled to ask.
"Well," she laughs, after a little bit of thought.
"I want to get married and have my own family. Basically, I’d like to
be a great home-maker and a mum number one," she says, with a faraway
look in her eyes.
What about the all-important
career? Why did she accept something like a cameo in Thakshak?
"See, as far as my career goes, I’ve always had it
come to me, really. As I said earlier, god has been kind. I wasn’t
logically looking at films. I wasn’t slotting my career. I did that
role just because it was Govindji I was working with. That’s
all that mattered."
She wants to do
films, contemporary ones, which could be classified as art cinema. But
nothing is out of scope.
These days one sees her on the
small-screen in a dehati makeover opposite Sanjay Suri in
Yehi To Pyaar Hai.
"New stuff, you know," she goes. "Nobody was
shooting TV at that scale…we have shot on location in Rajasthan! It’s
a true blue love story with all the triangles, squares, and
rectangles. So why not!"
For a small-town
girl, Nethra has survived very well in an industry where good bods and
the green bucks count. |
