Roducer's Take

Catching up with Akshay Kumar for a meeting at five in the morning is a part of her work schedule, shopping is her stress-buster— this 20-something, glamorous producer, Prerna Arora, is certainly creating quite a stir in the film industry.

- Ankita Rathod

She’s 28, and one of India’s youngest film producers around. Prim and proper from head to toe, she walks for the interview wearing a nice mauve Burberry jacket paired with black tracks; she has bare glowing skin, with just a hint of eye make-up. I meet the gorgeously talented Prerna Arora at a coffee shop of a suburban five star hotel in Mumbai. “Signed last year in July—shot in January—finished in April—releasing in August. It’s like a dream come true,” she schmoozes, talking about her debut production Rustom, starring Akshay Kumar along with a strong ensemble cast.

Born and raised amidst the foothills of the Himalayas in the city of Dehradun, Prerna spearheads her father Virendra Arora’s production house, Kriarj  Entertainment. An ardent fan of J Om Prakash, Yash Chopra and Karan Johar, she shares, “I had a very different upbringing. Unlike the kids in the metro cities, in Dehradun, it’s much closed doors, we weren’t exposed to the media, not even allowed to watch TV or read magazines.” The first film she ever watched was Anil Kapoor’s Mr. India, that too on a video cassette.

Assessing Prerna’s leadership qualities, her father always thought she would become an Income Tax Officer or a District Magistrate. But, soon she realised, “I was abnormal, there was something unconventional about me. The poem, ‘Road not taken’, that was my story,” she says.