Chhoti Aakhein Bade Sapne
i was six years old when i watched this
film
and every time i heard shahrukh khan say
anjali
i thought he’s calling out to me
literally
i just knew that this is the place where
i belong
little did i realize that at a very
young and innocent age
i had found my true calling in life
acting
i dreamt of being an actor at the age of
6 and i broke it to my parents
when i was 21 so let me introduce myself
my name is anjali bharat and i am an
actor
i come from a simple middle class
gujarati family
where my father works in a bank my
mother is a wonderful house maker
and my younger sister who works in an
agency
i was born and brought up in navi mumbai
and yes
i still get responses like do you need a
visa to travel to mumbai
do we need to book you an outstation cab
with that said please fasten your seat
belts
as we will now travel back in time
to when my dream was well just a dream
and as my social media bio aptly
summarizes
i was six when i wanted to act and i
kept this as my safely guarded secret
for 15 long years 15 years
of holding on to a secret true story
i can’t even plan birthday surprises
because i just have to blurt it out
i intentionally decided not to disclose
this with
anyone because i was petrified that i
would be judged
and laughed at for my choices as i grew
older the fire in me to pursue my dreams
got bigger and bigger when you come from
a completely non-filmy background and
have no connections whatsoever
you really don’t know who to speak to
how to begin
or just what to do so
i started calculating backwards i asked
myself
what do i need to do to become an actor
at that time i would often read in
newspapers that some actor was spotted
in a production house
and then his life changed overnight
instantly
i had a plan right in front of me
i made up my mind that i am going to
work in a production
house and for that i needed my degree in
mass media
and that’s exactly what i transpired i
thought
i had figured it all out like a perfect
mathematical equation
i was young knife ambitious deadly combo
so as per the plan i finished my
bachelors in mass media
and slid into the spam mails of all the
good production houses
with a hope to get an opportunity to
intern
i was willing to work for free however i
got
nothing substantial for nine full months
so on one side where my friends were
either pursuing their masters
or some had even started earning i had
nothing concrete in my hands
i thought maybe now’s the time to work
on myself
and take up a small acting course
at the age of 21 i gathered all the
courage in the world
and i went up to my parents and i told
them
that since i don’t really have anything
much right now
i was wondering if i could take up a
three-month acting course in andheri
west
dramatic pause sorry guys no soft story
here because my parents were completely
on board
and they told me to go ahead with it but
that
was just one part the next question was
what’s the face the cost of that course
was rupees 90 000
in 2013. you would know how much that
amount means
to a middle class family luckily
there was an option to pay an
installment so my father paid 30 000
rupees every month
and i paid in guilt
my class would start at 9am in andheri
west
and since i stayed in navi mumbai i
would leave my house at 5 45 am
change two trains and reach andheri
station by 8 am
with no metro and an endless wait for
the bus i decided to take an auto ride
on my first day of class
the cost of that autoride was 60 rupees
one day
that’s 120 in a day 3600 in a month
and 10 500 rupees in three months
i was always good at maths so
i had a plan once again i decided i am
going to save this 10
hundred rupees and use it for the last
installment of my fees and help my
father
hence i started walking six kilometers
every day from aderi station to my
classes
daily workout check one fine day
a casting director named weber vishal
who then worked with mukesh shabra
casting company
gave us a guest lecture and shared his
email id with us
for any future help guess who wrote to
him
instantly my email screamed enthusiasm
and eagerness to audition and to my
surprise
he called me to audition for a film in
mukesh chandra casting company
i was thrilled in my head i had already
made it i was in a big banner film and
already giving my ted talk in 2013
but that audition was my first reality
check
and let me put it in this perspective
since we have a lot of non-actors here
auditions are to us what ai tripoli is
for you guys
but with 99.9 percent cut off
because literally that many people
audition for that part
and one person gets the job
coming back to my audition it was
horrible
because i got so overwhelmed with the
entire process
that i ended up acting you know what i
mean
acting is basically being able to not
act at
all and my audition was terrible
i could see it in his face i was so
disappointed with myself that i had lost
such a good opportunity
i went back to my same routine i
finished my acting course
but in this entire process my confidence
had taken a hit
i did not have courage to give auditions
anymore
but i hadn’t given up on acting
so i started looking out for a job in
production house once again
but this time to understand the process
of content
and get comfortable in that environment
i finally secured a full-time job in an
ad production house
in 2015 as a director’s assistant
i was then promoted to being an
associate producer in 2015 i was doing
decent for my age
i was taking care of my expenses and i
was proud about that
however there was this one emotion that
kept
haunting me every time i was on set
why am i standing behind the camera when
i know i belong in the front
it used to frustrate me to watch someone
else perform
but i never expressed this even in the
production house i was working with
because i thought i would be judged
again
then came my first breakthrough dubsmash
you remember that app where you could
act out movie dialogues
yeah i know some of you are already
judging me right now but don’t worry
it’s completely okay people laughed at
me then
for making those videos people laugh at
me now when they hear the story
and people can laugh at me all they want
but you know what i went to that app
seeking an outlet and came off gaining
my confidence back
my videos were being shared my followers
were increasing
and more than that i was upskilling
tubsmash served as a fodder to my
acting bug and what drove me even more
was that people were enjoying watching
me perform
one of my college seniors happened to
watch my dub
and called me for an audition that he
was working on
i was thrilled and nervous at the same
time
because now i was going to audition
after one and a half years post my
initial hiccup
but you know what i just got the part
and just like that my fear of auditions
had also
vanished i was so elated that i was
finally going to face the camera as a
professional
actor you know there are some moments
in your life in which you have an
out-of-body experience that you just
can’t put it in words
that moment for me was when i heard
action
i knew this is what i wanted to hear for
the rest of my life
post that ad i continued doing my work
and auditions only to realize that i
couldn’t sail on two boats
in 2015 i went to my parents and i told
them
that i want to quit my job and pursue
acting full-time
my parents obviously had their own
concerns and they asked me if i was
willing to let go
of the cushion and security of a monthly
income
and instead keep waiting for an acting
gig to materialize
i told them that i had saved some money
which could sustain for one year tops
and in that one year i wanted to give
500
to acting and see if i could pull it off
and to my surprise they said yes go
ahead
then began the vicious circle of
auditions reaching out to casting
directors
and my best friend rejections
i used to audition for about 60 ads in a
month
out of which i would get shortlisted for
say about 20
and then maybe i would get that one ad
in that way i managed to get two ads in
six months
but i took it as a silver lining
meanwhile my parents had also figured
that she is not going to give up on
acting
and in fact they even celebrated my
tiniest of wins
i remember my mother cried more than me
when one of the tvcs i had shot for
chopped my two seconds of visuals and
she just couldn’t understand why
but i kept going
slowly i started getting ads short films
and then came my second breakthrough
digital media
in 2018 sorry in 2018 i got my first
digital sketch and people started loving
and recognizing me from those videos
i was elated that people wanted to watch
me for more than just 30 seconds
i went on to work with the best of
digital channels like scoopful
filter copy blush rv cj and so on
soon i became the digital face digital
truly gave me wings to fly i would play
multiple characters
every other day and it gave me a
platform to showcase my talent to a
wider
audience interestingly in the same year
in 2018 i got a call from mukesh chhabra
casting company
saying that they would want to audition
me for a film
a big banner finn from a production
house i used to once
obsess about and i was bundle of nerves
all over again i gathered all the
courage
and went for that audition and turns out
i
actually did well as an actor
you just know when you’ve given that
good take after a few days i got a call
saying that i was shortlisted for the
film
and i was anxious and how but
i did not follow up with the casting
director because i have this weird
fear that i will jinx a project if i do
so
so even though i didn’t ask about it i
never forgot about it either
cut 2 few months later i get a call
from the same team saying um anjali we
would like to audition you for a web
show called scam 1992
without inquiring about the previous
project i went to the office
to test for this part belvinder singh
one of the senior most casting directors
in mukesh shabra casting company
came to me and he told me anjali i just
wanted to tell you that we had
loved your audition for the film and i
won’t be able to forget that
for a really long time but i’m sorry
that it didn’t work out and i’m sure
something good is going to come out of
this
that moment brought me closure to the
much brought me closure and much needed
calm to the chaos
in my head that day i
also learned that rejections hurt you a
little more
when they come wrapped in the form of a
genuine compliment
with a smile on my face and tears in my
eyes
i just said thank you and went to the
studio to audition for jyoti mehta scam
1992
and wait it’s not over yet i got to know
that i was shortlisted for that part
and then the project went on hold for
one year
there wasn’t one single day when i
didn’t think about it or didn’t hope for
it to materialize
i kept doing my regular acting work and
one year later i get a call from the
same team
asking anjali do you remember the part
that you had tested for
in scam 1992 we just wanted to uh check
your
dates and confirm your availability
do i even need to say how i felt
i just screamed a big yes
from giving the worst audition of my
life in 2013
to winning a dream project in 2019
from the same company life had come
a full circle
from my humble beginnings and a roller
coaster ride
i have learned a few lessons which i
would love to share
number one there is no plan b
but root bee if you really want to chase
your dreams and if you have an
undying passion towards it never give
yourself a cushion
of plan b because when you do that you
end up
accessing that plan b instead give
yourself a root b
root c root d or a root z because
there might be many rules that will
reach to your destination
but no root is an easy one
second success is a commodity
oprah winfrey before becoming the oprah
winfrey
was told that she is unfit for
television sachin denulker got out at 15
runs in his debut match against pakistan
so you can’t just get up one fine day
and expect success right away
even if you’re the best at something it
just
doesn’t work like that so when i say
success is a commodity
it is i mean that if you want it you
earn it third
my best friend rejections
who hasn’t faced and overcome rejections
every rejection in your life has brought
you to this point
and trust me if you can look back at
those rejections
with a smile and without any better
feelings
you will do just fine so if there are a
hundred people who may reject you
you need to be that one person who
believes in you
today when scam 1992 has technically
broken
all the records and people ask me how
does it feel to achieve this overnight
success
five years of undeterred hard work
and a million of rejections flash in
front of my eyes
and i just tell them i feel content
do i feel i have arrived no do i have
producers and directors waiting for me
at the doorstep
no do i know what i’m going to do next
not really
but i know one thing for sure that you
are only you’re as good
as your last project so right now
while the audiences are loving the show
and the critics are appreciating my
performance
i am back to auditioning i am still
winning some jobs and i’m still
losing a lot of jobs but
i sleep happy at night that i’ve made
the six-year-old anjali
proud from obsessing over one production
house
to falling in love with my craft from
anjali to risk head over scare this
has been my journey so far
picture aviva meridos until then
stay positive and test negative thank
you so much