BENGALURU: Bengaluru girl Kajol Chugh grew up with a ‘quintessential Bollywood dream’ – to have a launching movie with dreamy songs that she would lip sync to. While her role as ‘Chhatriwali’ in the Netflix anthology series Feels like Ishq, helped her win many hearts, her dream of being in a song was left unfulfilled, despite having two films under her belt. That is until this month when a new music video by singers Kanishk Seth and Aarifah came out.
A song about ‘love of all forms’ Jahaan Pe Dil Hai helped Chugh finally realise her dream of starring in a music video. “I was always hoping to do a music video, if it had a good storyline,” she shares. “When I was approached for this project, I jumped at the opportunity, especially since I knew a lot of people involved in the project and having worked on a few ads with them, I knew of their works. The song struck a chord with me. It explores loving oneself before including another person in your life. So that’s what I liked the most about the song. It’s right in between a mainstream and an indie vibe.”
While Chugh grew up in Bengaluru, she moved to Mumbai to focus on her acting career. That experience, she says, came in handy while portraying her role in Jahaan Pe Dil Hai. “My character is a person who’s moving out of their comfort zone, entering a new space, finding new friends, a new home and everything. Having moved from Bengaluru to Mumbai myself, I related to the character a lot,” she adds.
Furthermore, Chugh shares that she had a significant amount of input into the script, especially with the way her character is portrayed. “When I came on board, I noticed that the team was male-oriented. The script also included a lot of stereotypical aspects, which I didn’t think my character would do. But the director was open to such inputs and we worked around it,” she says.
Having debuted alongside actor Riccha Chadda in the 2020 film Shakeela, Chugh has managed to make a mark in a relatively short period of time despite being an outsider. But her journey has been anything but smooth. “As a kid, I knew that I wanted to be an actor. But this one time in school, I was asked what I wanted to do in life, and when I said ‘actor’, everyone laughed.
Since then, I became shy about it, but the determination never went away. When I eventually started performing in plays in college, I realised that that is what I wanted to pursue. My parents were supportive, but warned me that if I wanted to pursue it, I should fully commit to it, otherwise do something else,” she shares. “Yet I continued to audition unsuccessfully. I would audition for roles from Bengaluru, but would say that I’m in Mumbai, but I got rejected many times.
I did one for Coca-Cola with Deepika Padukone, which I didn’t get. The same casting director later helped me get the role in Shakeela. It was Indrajit Lankesh’s first Hindi film, and it sort of reassured me that I was doing fine. Later, when I finally moved to Mumbai, I started to audition much more.”
Currently working on two more projects, one of which is also a music video, and the other a film with actor Chadda, Chugh feels like she has come full circle since her debut. “It’s a coming-of-age film called Girls will be Girls. I play a rebellious student in the ensemble,” she says.