I am happy doing cameos: Pooja Madan

Remember Pooja Madan? The actress who used to play Santosh (the elder sister) in Amanat is back on television after a gap of almost four years. She is playing the role of Kamla in the serial Swarg on Colors. But even today, people know and remember her as Santosh.Though she is dead in the show the actress says she enjoyed her brief encounter on the show. “My character in Amanat was so popular that people still call me by that name. Very few remember that I did a show called Ehsaas on DD1 after Amanat which did pretty well,” says the actress who took a break largely due to her daughter Samika. “I have a three-year-old daughter. I needed to take care of her in the first few years which is why I was away from limelight,” explains the pretty actress. Pooja got married in 2003 to Deepak Chander. “He is currently heading the India operations of a multi national company,” explains Pooja. How did the comeback happen? “Rajan ji (Shahi) had spoken to me a number of times before this and had offered me roles in Bidaai and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai. Unfortunately, due to my personal constraints I had to say no to both. This time when he called me again for Swarg he gave me two options,” remembers the pretty actress. “He said you can either do a cameo- Kamala or a longer role – Yashoda. You pick your choice. I went for Kamala’s role because I want to start working gradually. Right now I want to do more cameo roles and am not interested in full-time work,” says the mother who is trying to balance her personal and professional commitments. “I had been getting similar offers for the last one and half years, but I decided to go for this role because this was a Rajan Shahi production and it involved working only for 25 days!” says Pooja who had to travel to Vrindavan for the show. “It was a difficult time because my daughter was missing me a lot. Now when she sees me on television, she asks me when I will come out of the television!” explains the actress who was not nervous but did have some butterflies in her stomach when she faced the camera after four years. What is the biggest change she sees today in the world of television? “The biggest difference I see is in the variety on offer today. There are so many channels, so many shows, people have so much of choice – it is mind-blowing. Plus now there are lot more region-specific shows like Balika Vadhu is based in Rajasthan, Swarg is in Mathura and so on.