Yogesh Mishra | yogesh@bollywoodtown.in
Preeti Jhangiani, who shot to fame from Mohabbatein, has completed her silver jubilee years in the Hindi film industry. Prior to Hindi films, she worked in three South Indian films and created her own space there. Even prior to a big screen, she did a lot of ad films and music videos. Rajshri Productions’ music video Ye Hai Prem (Chhui Mui Si Tum Lagti Ho) was a big turning point that opened a door for the big screen industry for her. Apart from the blockbuster Mohabbatein, she has also worked in many Hindi films like Awara Paagal Deewana, LOC Kargil, and Aan: Men At Work, etc. In an exclusive interview with Yogesh Mishra, she spoke about her childhood days, the way she entered Bollywood, her newly started production house, her working experience in the latest release, Udaipur Files, upcoming projects, and more.
Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood days and how you entered the glamour world?
It’s so nice that you’re talking to me about all these things. Actually, I was born and brought up in Mumbai. My family is not connected to films at all in any way. So, it was never my dream or my ambition that I wanted to become an actor, and I wanted to enter the entertainment industry. I was just 16 or 17 years old when I was studying at Jai Hind College, Churchgate (Mumbai). Until then, I had very few travels; once I went to London because my aunt was there. So that was the one trip I had done. My life was very secluded and protected. It was a very traditional Sindhi family. But my parents were always very open-minded and very modern. We were just two sisters. Therefore, we consistently advocated for independence and self-reliance. Never depend on anybody for anything. So, we were always encouraged to do whatever we wanted. So, when I was modelling for the opportunity in college, I was distributing pamphlets. They wanted us to do a Colgate gel ad for a different person. We were kids. We went with a bunch of girls, and we went to shoot for the audition. So, we auditioned for the ad film, and I got that ad film. And Colgate gel was the first ad with four or five other girls and boys. After that, my photograph started circulating to different agencies, and people started calling me for different products’ modeling. And then the first music video I did was with Radhika Rawal and Vinay Sapru. After that I did a couple more ad films, and then I was called from my agency for the Ye Hai Prem music video of Rajshri Productions. So, I directly went to college for the audition and saw that Saroj Khan ji was sitting there. It was such an amazing experience. They saw me, and the next day I heard that I’m doing the video. That’s it. There’s no audition at all.
Wow, without an audition, you have been selected. What next?
The next day was when my father came with me to meet them. And they saw my father. They said they loved talking to my father and interacting with him. So, he always channeled with me. By the way, my father had retired. So, he was quite inclined towards acting. He was a jovial man. So, he enjoyed speaking to everybody and interacting with people. And he didn’t have any shyness in front of the camera. This way I did the Rajshri music video, which was the first music video I did. After that, I did many albums. That was the time of music videos in the 90s. Initially the idea was to do just one music video. But the music video became so popular that they decided to shoot all the songs in that album. Then they decided to make it like a story. So, all the songs are one by one as a story.
After the huge success of your music videos, how did you enter the world of the big screen?
Actually, my first movie was a Malayalam movie. There was a good strike at the colleges in the news time. I was 17 years old. I made a music video and released one. So, the Malayalam film and the Telugu film producers, they came and landed up at my house. They didn’t have my phone number or anything, but they had the address, and they just came to my house, and they spoke to my parents, and they said, “We want to do this,” and my father said, “But we are not. I’m not sure we want to do movies because we don’t know anything about movies, and we are not sure that she wants to do movies.” She is modeling, and she was all of that. So, they said, “No, no, it will be very nice, and we are shooting the whole film in Austria.” Not in India. So, I told my dad, Come on. We have to go because we are going to shoot it in Austria. So, I only went for that Malayalam movie because I was spending 30 days in Austria. My father and I were just in to have a good time, but it turned out to be a training ground for me. Because that director, Mr. Mohanji, was absolutely amazing. He wanted me to; he worked very hard on me and on my dialogues and on my expressions, and it was a very tough role. It was a difficult role, my first Malayalam, and till now people remember the music and that film. And then after that, of course, the majority after that I did Tamil with Pawan Kalyan, which was a remake. With Pawan Kalyan, the official remake was also a very big hit down south. This way I entered the South Indian film industry before I entered the Hindi film industry. My South films are a huge, huge success, and then, of course, there was again just a call from Mohabbatein, and they said that this is the movie and you come and meet us. Again, I went to meet them with my dad.
How did you get on board with the movie ‘Mohabbatein’?
So, I told you a little bit about my background and about when I got a call from Yash Chopra’s office. I and my father went to meet Adi (Aditya Chopra). There was only Adi there, nobody else. Only Adi met us alone, and he spoke to us, and he said that this is the film and this is the commitment I will require from you. I will require a whole year commitment, and I know that you’re doing other films in the south as well, but I will require you to not do any other work while my film is being shot, and you know this because you will require that kind of commitment, and I will train you in that way. So, my father and I Ireally liked him. He was a very open, honest, and young guy, and we really liked him, and we said okay, yes, we will do the film, and at that time I think nobody else had signed off.
So, there was no audition, no screen test as such for ‘Mohabbatein’?
Yes, in Mohabbatein, there was nothing like that. They were auditioning and testing for the other person, kind of. There was no look test, nothing. After selection, trials, and everything, the look test happened much later. That was when Manish Ji (Manish Malhotra) came in, and he started doing the films and everything, only then. Then we did the look test and everything. We were deciding on different kinds of costumes and what kind of costume she should wear. They were deciding whether, because she’s a video, she should only wear all white; while she’s waiting for her husband and all that, she should wear light-paste and shades; or she should wear a bridal costume because her father-in-law is one, so she should only be in bridal clothes. So, what would all of this look like? That was the look test. But I always say that I always think that it was in my destiny. Because there was absolutely no inclination towards acting in movies. No, was there any background? So, and I remember when I got in because before we started the interview, we were talking about Sindhi families. And at that time, there was nobody from Sindhi families after Sadhana. There had been no actress from a Sindhi family. So, there was absolutely. After Sadhana, there were now, of course, a couple of girls. I just thought I think there were a lot of males in the actors and also a lot of males in the producers, but not any actresses. Asrani ji was one of those male Sindhi actors.
We recently lost legendary actor Asrani Ji, who was also from the Sindhi community. I think it is one of the biggest losses to the film industry.
Yes, and it’s the biggest loss to our industry. Asrani Ji was a fantastic actor and an amazing human being. And it’s a big loss to our industry.
So, how did life change after the release of ‘Mohabbatein’?
First, I’ll tell you how my life changed before why we wish to come up with it. I think they’re kind of the training ground that I’ve got for that movie for eight months. They said that the role was of a classical Indian dancer. Now, I had not danced one day in my life either. I didn’t know any form of dance. I had not trained in any dance. And to be a classical dancer, the kind of dancer that Mr. Chopra wanted to say, when this girl comes outside with her, sorry, it should look like a dancer is coming in the stance, and the body language should be a dancer. Now, to achieve that, there has to be an immense amount of training. So, I’ve trained for eight months, every day in the morning, at six a.m. I used to be asked to come in with the tabla, and I trained in Kathak, Bharat Natyam, and four other times. Then I used to go straight to the Yashraj office, where I taught diction and Hindi to a lot of famous people in the industry. He was there, and he used to train all of us in Hindi diction and voice throwing lessons. After that, we used to train with Mr. Barry John for theatre training. And after that, we used to train with Farah Khan for Hindi film songs and dance training. And even in between, we used to train with Adi for different scenes. So, there were eight months; we had just talked about Adi’s Hindi film, everything, everything. Our Hindi was very bad. So, we had to train and work on our diction, on our language, on everything. So, that was how my life changed just before Mohabbatein. And then, of course, while shooting it, a lot of amazing moments were seen in a film to work with Mr. Shah Rukh Khan, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, and Aishwarya Rai; you know, to bond with all of our youngsters, Udai, Jugal, Jimmy, Shamita, etc. So, we all will always be special to each other because we spent so much time together.
How was your working experience with Amitabh Bachchan?
Like, sharing screen space with him was an amazing experience. Although I didn’t have so many scenes with him, in the songs we were together. And, yes, he was always very humorous, very young at heart. He always wanted to sit with the youngsters and talk to the youngsters, and his command over the English language and the Hindi language is mind-blowing. I have never seen anybody who has such a command of both languages. So, it’s very amazing and very impressive. And he is, of course; he is a towering personality.
Tell us something about your latest released movie, Udaipur Files.
When I heard the story of Udaipur Files, I knew that it’s a true-life story, and yeah, I’ve always been very attracted to true-life stories. Even now you see the books I need. I need more autobiographies because I am very fascinated by true-life stories. And this was a story in which justice had not yet been given. Till now the family has not received the kind of justice that they should for a crime that was so heinous. I wanted to do this film because I felt this is a story that had to be told. It’s a story about justice; it doesn’t matter what the caste or religion of the person murdered is. Unfortunately, maybe a lot of people were not able to see it because it had a limited release and maybe fewer screens, like you mentioned, but I still feel I’m very proud that I did that movie.
What about your two kids? Is either of them inclined towards acting?
My elder son is 15 years old and can’t say anything as of now, but he’s inclined towards sports right now. He’s one of the district-level football players. He plays all the sports in school. So, he’s very sporty. And my little one is not artistic. They’ve said he likes to create job paint. He likes to cook. So, he’s very different. They are not on social media. So, we want to make the only, so we don’t want them to be influenced because of us or because of their parents. They watch the movies they want to. They watch a lot of English movies; it’s a different generation. So we don’t want to force them to do anything they don’t want to do.
Tell us something about your newly started production house.
Yes, we started a new production house and did a film too. It’s doing very well. It won a lot of awards. It was even featured in the Indian panorama section, so after that, we started our own sports league. It’s an arm-wrestling league called the Pro Panja, and we’ve already done two seasons on Sony Sports.
Would you like to give any message to the readers of Bollywood Town?
I would like to definitely say that go for your dreams; never let anybody tell you that you can’t do something because you can always do something. Live and let live. This is something that is very important because in today’s day and time, where we see what is happening in this day and age, I just want everybody to live and let live.
