Second Innings

Chitrashi Rawat, Chak De! India's firebrand hockey player, is the new cop in the show FIR.

It has been six years since she appeared on the big screen for the first time as the pint-sized small-town spitfire Komal Chautala in Chak De! India. Yet Chitrashi Rawat's performance has remained etched in popular consciousness. Her lukewarm subsequent years were peppered with small roles in films such as Luck and Fashion, and a couple of reality shows. But Rawat's turn as the new face of Sab TV's popular sitcom FIR, she says, would be the start of a second innings.

You have mostly been associated with films. What made you take up a television show like FIR?

I have always consciously kept myself away from television because I am not particularly fond of the saas-bahu type of shows. Films give me a different high. Also, television is a long-term commitment. So it was a big decision for me. But FIR is not a run-of-the-mill television serial. It has a female lead as a cop, and has a very likeable brand of humour.

I play Kavita Kaushik's daughter, who succeeds her and takes over after a generation leap. My parents, who stay in Dehradun, are happy that now they would at least be able to see me everyday(laughs).

Your role in FIR and some films in the past have been along similar lines as your character in Chak De! India — brazen and tomboy-ish girl. Don't you think it has been a hindrance in your career?

I don't take it that way. It happens with everyone. Even Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have been associated with a certain image. On the contrary, it makes me feel good that Komal Chautala's character had such a lasting effect on people's mind.

My characters in my last two films, Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya (2012) and Prem Mayee, were very girly.

... contd.

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