She's a Wild card winner

Prachi Desai is back in her daily soap. But there's a film "" and a house "" on the anvil.

It isn't hard to miss the tremor in Prachi Desai's voice. The 19-year-old is still in the process of recovering from a nasty bout of flu.

"I've had it for long but there's just loads of pending work," she says, speaking to us from the sets of Kasamh Se, a Balaji serial, which reportedly has had falling TRPs after Desai's temporary exit.

Desai and Deepak, her choreographer who was responsible for helping her win television's reality dance show, Jhalak Dikhla Ja, Season 2, have been exercising their vocal chords ever since they won the competition. "The minute the cameras stopped rolling, we started giving interviews. Since then," Desai adds, clearing her throat, "we haven't stopped."

If Desai has been grinning, Deepak is already making plans to start his dance company. "I've been assured that I will get a certain sum of the prize money from the channel," he says, while remembering the first time he met Desai.

"She had so many stuffed toys in her room... I kept thinking, 'all right, here's a kid whom I need to train for four long months,'" he laughs.

Though it was reported that last year's winners (Mona Singh and her choreographer Toby) took home Rs 30 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively, both Desai and Deepak are tight-lipped about the money part. Deepak says, "I want to get more work, not just money, after winning the title." He quips, "Prachi is going to give me gifts anyway."

On her part, Desai is already planning her first mega investment with her prize money of Rs 50 lakh. "My own home; that's what I want. Rents in Mumbai are huge and now that I have some bulk amount I want to immediately put it into real estate," she says cheerfully.

While this onscreen bahu (she debuted two years ago in Kasamh Se, Balaji Productions' prime-time serial on Zee TV) is naturally ecstatic about her win, she does admit to having some very low phases while she was a part of Jhalak Dikhla Ja.

"See, Balaji was my cocoon and I'd never really stepped out of it. When I went to Jhalak, I went because I wanted people to know me as Prachi, not as Bani, and I wanted to explore the possibility of learning different genres of dancing," she says.

So how was the experience? There's a slight pause before Desai answers: "I was the youngest of the lot. It's wrong to say that I was the most popular person. Ronit (Roy) was the most popular TV artiste on the show.

Sudha Chandran was the best dancer while Mini Mathur, the most popular face on the show. How on earth was I expected to win in the midst of seasoned actors and celebs?" But she did, I prompt her. "Yes, and, dare I say, people who cried when Deepak and I left the show were suddenly not too happy when we got back with the wild card entry," Desai adds.

She speaks candidly about the time when she watched the final episode of the show after she took the trophy and met some of her friends. "They had recorded the grand finale for me and it was then that my friends and I felt that my win wasn't given its due credit," she admits.

A major chunk of the final episode (post the announcement of the winner), in fact, had judges' talk centred around Sandhya Mridul, the runner up, who, according to judges, was already a winner. "Yes, I did feel bad about it at the time but the fact is that I have ended up winning the title and the prize money has meant a lot to me," she smiles.

"I wanted to win," Deepak, on his part, adds. "When we were ousted midway, it was a blow. When we came through a wild card entry, it was a blow of a different kind as some participants and a select group in the audience objected."

Both assure that there was a great deal of hard work involved "" from rehearsing 4-5 hours daily, Desai and Deepak started investing 7-8 hours every day for dance rehearsals towards the end of the show. "She wasn't a trained dancer but she had the right attitude," adds Deepak.

Both, the student and her teacher are thrilled with their win but are now going their separate ways. "I'm glad she won because, as a celebrity, she had just one golden chance. I can get so many more chances," laughs Deepak.

Desai is back to her gruelling schedule of acting in a prime-time serial ("I feel stressed at times") and in February, she will begin work on Rock On a film opposite Farhan Akhtar (the director's debut as an actor) where she will essay the role of a musician in a band.

"It's a different image, a complete change from what I'm doing today," she promises. Deepak too is on the move. "I've some films in hand and instead of assisting, I'm planning to take the plunge in this big, bad world of Bollywood." Who knows, they might just meet again and recreate the magic once more.