A shade two much!

"WHO AM I?" she shoots back, the eyebrows rising in an arc. "I am what you want me to be," she announces, a naughty smile shooting up from her eyes.

Some more persistence and she lets out a loud sigh. "Oh, there is only one me...just me...I'm Sakshi," she pleads, fists clenched and eyes shut. In the process, she shuts out the Seeta-Geeta er... Sakshi-Shilpa controversy that bemused everyone.

There is no doubt about it. The double trouble in actress Sakshi Sivanand's life seems to be long over. And this is a brand new hour.

"Wherever I went, my sister haunted me," she laughs, recounting a shoot at a remote Karnataka village when an assistant dance master approached her. "Though I knew him, I couldn't recognise him immediately for he had tanned a lot. I just stared at him trying to jog my memory. And he let out a Viking war cry, saying this wasn't Sakshi Sivanand. And no amount of explanation could convince him," she says.

"If I failed to dance or emote well the unitwallahs would instantly conclude that this wasn't the original one. Gawd...I was so harried coping up with this dual duel. Luckily, it's all over," Sakshi sighs, as she gets back to Hyderabad after a self- imposed hibernation from Telugu films for doing "some challenging roles" in Hindi, Tamil and Kannada.

"But, my roots are in Telugu films. This is where I've faced the camera for the first time, got recognised on a street and tasted success. Whatever respect I have is because of the Telugu film industry. I've got so identified as a Telugu girl that Tamil and Kannada directors converse with me in Telugu alone," says the Kannadiga gal who notched up roles opposite bigwigs Chiranjeevi and Nagarjuna, besides churning out some peppy performances.

Then, what made her take wings to distant filmlands? "How long should I be a glamdoll wearing those colourful sunglasses and lurid costumes? Every artiste reaches a stage where routine gets boring and the effort is to do something different," she says, earnestly.

Hence, the foray into Tamil cinema with Arjun's `Vedam' and Kannada with Yogeshwar's `Sainika' - this is where the double trouble began - four Hindi films, including a historical `Amrapali' directed by Shekhar Kapoor's assistant.

"I wanted a change and am confident to pull of this shift from glamorous to performance-oriented roles," Sakshi insists. She is all excited about her Telugu film with Rajashekhar, `Simharasi' being directed by newcomer Samudra where she plays a village belle.

More than anything else, "I'm back home, you see!", she declares, taking in a deep breath.

By K.V.S. Madhav

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