Guts And Grit

You may remember Shama Sikander as the shy, primly dressed girl from the popular TV series Yeh Meri Life Hai. Chirag Mohanty Samal meets her after a dramatic transformation

- Chirag Mohanty Samal

Sometime last year, a picture of Shama Sikander dressed in a white tuxedo, and another in a sexy black gown, broke the Internet. Her transformation from shy girl to confident star was jaw-dropping, to say the least. The actor has tweeted in the past about her experience with bipolar disorder, but certain other questions still hover over her name in the limelight. What were those adult web series about? How is she coping with a broken relationship? We get the feisty actor to sift fact from fiction in a candid chat. Edited excerpts from the interview:

Why did you decide to get into acting?

I am from a small town in Rajasthan. No one from my family was ever connected to the film industry but we were all huge fans of cinema and television. I studied till class 10 and changed nine schools, so I never had any long-term friends. My father was always uncertain about where to send me to school. So, whenever he would hear about a better school, he would enrol me there. It was my dad’s dream to become an actor, but he couldn’t because his family didn’t permit it. So, when I was growing up, he made plans for my career, which worked out perfectly for me.

You’ve struggled with bipolar disorder, and you once tweeted that you want to help others who suffer from it. When did you start experiencing symptoms?