When I took Prateik's (Babbar) dialect classes

A page from the personal diary of Sushil Bounthiyal aka as Phulwa’s dad Every person who takes up acting and for someone who has passed out from the National School of Drama would definitely want to see themselves in films and I was no different. But after I passed out from NSD in 2002, I took up theatre in Delhi. I did theatre till I felt the need to move to Mumbai to do films. Survival is one thing you need to fight for in this city. You need your basic things including a house to stay and a cell phone for people to get in touch with you. I was trying hard to get into films then and I did get a few films, which included Billu Barber. Unfortunately, all my scenes from the movie were chopped from the movie. I later did Aagey Se Right and Lamhaa and here again my roles were chopped out. To survive, I had to take up some work so I joined Ekjute, Nadira Babbar’s theatre group. I had joined there as an actor but she asked me to teach too. Later I started taking workshops and also started acting classes. After which I started taking diction classes too as I specialize in dialect. I took Prateik’s (Babbar) dialect classes, apart from him, Jacqueline Fernandez wanted me to teach her but then I was busy at that time. Even today whenever an actor does not get any word right on the sets of Phulwa they come to me to get the pronunciation right. I had never planned to do TV but it just happened as I did realize that taking up TV was a good option. Actors like Yashpal Sharma and Surekha Sikri who are also from NSD inspired me to take up television. People do a lot of things to fulfill their dreams and survive in a city like Mumbai but I just took some acting classes which wasn’t a difficult thing to do. I truly believe, my self-confidence has held me in good stead. It had helped me in Delhi, Lucknow and now in Mumbai. I always knew I would make it and people are recognizing my work.