Chitrashi Rawat of ‘Chak De India’ fame happens to be the 1st ever actress of the Bollywoodian Tinsel Town to have got rid of the shackles of the so called glam girls in the conventional mould. So meet Chitrashi Rawat, an unconventional actress, who is no doubt an actress par excellence. She has indeed proved time & again, right from her debut film CHAK DE INDIA to her latest release BLACK HOME, that she can tackle varied roles and further prove her mettle in the histrionics arena. At heart Chitrashi is a sports loving person, having already proved her proficiency in hockey. And now it is her dream to do as many sports films as possible. Present herewith is a telephonic conversation with a very bubbly & an enthusiastic persona known as Chitrashi Rawat.

Pencil in your background in a nutshell.

I hail born from the beautiful city of Dehradun. I have been a hockey player from the very early stage of my life and also represented my state Uttrakhand at the National level. And by a sheer chance of luck I had bagged CHAK DE INDIA.

And then?

In fact CHAK DE INDIA had happened to me almost a decade ago. Since then I have done films like FASHION, LUCK, TERE NAAL LOVE HO GAYA et al on the celluloid silver screen. That apart in the small screen arena too I have ended up taking part in the most popular shows like COMEDY CIRCUS & ISS JUNGLE SE MUJHE BACHAO on Sony TV and a leading role in FIR on Sab TV. Not only this I have also ended up doing the longest running theater plays like BAAP KA BAAP in Hindi & HONEY HAI TOH MONEY HAI in English.

Ok Now give us a brief insight into your latest release BLACK HOME?

Actually speaking BLACK HOME happens to be a very realistic film belonging to a dark genre, its an eye opener that sets you thinking. It is based on the theme of Juvenile Delinquency. And I have a very strong, powerful & an author backed female oriented role. In fact I am one of the main protagonists in the film. And again frankly speaking the Juvenile Act is implied for the betterment of children’s future. But unfortunately the reality is absolutely unimaginable & unthinkable. The child, who comes to the remand home, is not always & really a criminal. But the real fact is that most of the time an unwanted child of the house belongs to a very poor family. The parents are so poor that they find it very difficult to make the 2 ends meet, so to raise this child becomes like a mission impossible. Hence in reality BLACK HOME is a sincere effort to reveal the reality of these remand home girls in front of the society and make the society aware of the facts that these children lead a life worst than hell. We are a part of this society, where we live a very secure life but the other side of the society is very dark, like a BLACK HOME.

Please continue.

So to reveal the plot in a nutshell, Rajawadi Remand Home is in embroiled in a lot of controversy because of many illegal activities. DK, a news channel bureau chief is all over it again and wants to bring the facts out albeit he is surrounded all around with the usual electronic media politics. DK then uses a non – performing female journalist Anjali to expose the racket and the dark side of the society and show its real & ugly face. It unfolds so many cruel realities of the crime & the politics, which we conveniently ignore. Even otherwise it is not so easy to expose the age old system. So I would say that BLACK HOME is fully researched base film with lot of lots of information gathered from media, news papers and real life interviews of remand mome girls to understand the intensity of the subject. Sincerely speaking BLACK HOME is inspired by true events & information. And I am happy that in BLACK HOME I got a chance to work with veteran & extremely talented actors like Ashutosh Rana, Mohan Joshi, Murli Sharma, Achint Kaur, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Sharad Ponkshe, Santosh Juvekar, Raju Kher, Neelu Kohli, Simran Sehmi, Ajay Suryawanshi, Akhanksha Gade, Priya Gamre et al. BLACK HOME also corroborates the truth that India stands 3rd in the world for rape. Every 20 minutes a girl is raped in India. And out of the 12 million girls born in India, 1 million girls do not see their real homes so most of these girls end up in BLACK HOME. Period!

So how would you describe your filmic journey from CHAK DE INDIA to BLACK HOME en route your varied stopovers in the small screen as well as theatrical arena?

All in all I would say that my journey in all the arenas was smooth sailing albeit my path was strewn with many ups & downs, trials & tribulations and sometimes the interim phase was laced with an unseen sign board of “No Vacancy” and then again I would bounce back with renewed energy without any visible signs of fatigue or depression.

And now name your wish list of both the Bollywoodian as well as the Hollywoodian arena.

The Bollywoodian directors on my wish list are Shekhar Kapoor, Vishal Bhardwaj, Anand Gandhi Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti, Kiran Rao et al and the Hollywoodian directors on my wish list are Majid Majidi, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair et al.

Any dream role?

No I won’t say that I would like to perform any yesteryear’s or the current heroines more popular roles. All I aspire to do is as many as and all kinds of sports oriented roles. And of course I would love to work in Hollywood films, Indie films, art house films, festival films & so on and so forth.

Your parting shot?

I want to be an actress to be reckoned with one who will leave behind a mark in remembrance in the annals of the golden pages of the filmic history.