Be it modelling, radio plays, theatre, live shows compering, television anchoring, veejaying, radio campaigns, serials or movies, Suchitra Pillai has done them all. With such varied portfolio of work Suchitra can certainly be called a versatile personality. And having done different things in different media solely on the basis of her inner strength and confidence, without sounding pompous Suchitra says she can make things happen for her. With a definite career agenda, she has the plans to work in the mainstream as well as off-beat Hindi films. But that's for the future.
Currently she is occupied with serials Raahein and Hip Hip Hurray and she is also anchoring two movie-based shows which are being telecast on cable channels in the USA.
Of the two on-air serials, Suchitra is more excited about Raahein which has her playing Reema Nath, a smart businesswoman who is out to take revenge against her ex-husband. "Actually she is quite a bitch," reveals Suchitra who loves her role because it has shades of white and grey.
"While on the one hand she wants to get even her ex-husband, on the other she has a beautiful relationship with Shefali Chhaya who confides all her problems and dilemmas in Reema Nath." Another reason for liking the role is that while she has done lot of episodic work, Suchitra says she has got the best compliments for her role in Raahein.
In Hip Hip Hurray also Suchitra plays a woman of substance. Playing a physics professor to 12th standard students, she is very popular among her students. But the role also explores her personal life. Says Suchitra, "Alak Nanda is a modern and extremely independent-minded woman who is in love with a man who leaves her to fend for herself when she is pregnant. But instead of going for an abortion, she decides to keep the child and be a single parent. So the role has a bite and definite graph." But while in Hip Hip Hurray she is not seen in every episode, in Raahein she is seen every week and what is keeping her in high spirits is the compliments she is getting for her performance.
An electronics engineer, Suchitra had a very eventful life in school and college with lot of extra-curricular activities and amateur theatre. But after she got her degree, she got married and went to London to live with her husband. But despite a degree in engineering which could have got her a good job, Suchitra opted for a career in modelling, theatre and radio.
While modelling assignments came her way in bits and pieces, it was through a modelling agency that she got to do a French film, Le Prix D'Une Femma (The Price Of A Woman) which was based on the life of a South Indian girl who becomes a dowry victim. Needless to say, Suchitra essayed the lead role. Next followed an English film called Guru In Seven. Besides radio plays, theatre and radio campaigns continued. But Suchitra says the volume of work was not enough to keep totally busy though she was enjoying what she was doing.
Six years after marriage, her husband shifted his base to Tokyo. But not finding anything to do there in her career-related field, Suchitra came to Mumbai in 1997 to meet her family as well as to see what's happening here in the field of media. At a party, she met the then general manager of Channel [V] Jules Fuller and in the course of conversation Suchitra told him that if she is not seen on Channel [V] the nit's the channel's loss. "I knew I could be a good VJ and what I needed was a good break," she recounts. "So I had no hesitation in telling Jules what I said." Thus followed a screen test and within no time Suchitra became Channel [V]'s popular VJ with shows like Red Alert, Simply South, Indian Top Ten, Cabaret Cabaret and Dance TV.
Though she was an employee of Channel [V], the channel allowed to work outside and Suchitra started doing club music shows and theatre and later serials too. It was her cousin Parvati Balgopalan who gave her break with a six-episode role in Margariat which was followed by episodic work for Saturday Suspense, X-Zone and Star Bestsellers. With her career taking off in Tellywood, Suchitra decided to stay in Mumbai for good and proceeded for legal separation from her husband. Ask her why the marriage broke and she says it was not because of anything else but the distance and work opportunities here. "First distance made us part ways," she confesses. "And second I didn't feel the need to go back to my husband. But we are good friends. In fact, I owe a lot to my ex-husband because he gave me the freedom to do what I wanted and whatever I am today is because of him."
While Suchitra had great time with Channel [V] which opened for her the doors of an exciting career and also gave her a big canvas to showcase her talent, she was pointblank asked to quit the channel when its new management inducted fresh faces as VJs. "I would have quit on my own if I was given a hit but the way I was asked to quit was not right," she says regretfully. "It was an unceremonious exit after a great association of two and half years."
But now she has no regrets because she is quite busy with serials, music videos and live events. She would love to continue doing television since it figures quite high on her list of priorities at the moment. But she also has the dream of working in movies, parallel and commercial, whenever it comes true. "I would love to work with directors like Govind (Nihalani), Deepa (Mehta) and (Shyam) Benegal simply because of their different approach to filmmaking," says Suchitra who also would not mind working in crass commercial Hindi cinema though her first priority is parallel cinema because, as she explains further, "It's a big challenge to work in realistic cinema because it's much more difficult to portray real life than make-believe larger-than-life mainstream cinema characters."
She has a couple of tele-shows in the offing. One is a comedy for the Adhikari Brothers and the other is a magazine show which she is anchoring. So things are going great guns for this hardcore optimist and extrovert lady who has made things happen her way simple because of "my confidence and ability to do different things".
Actress Suchitra Pillai married Lars Kjeldsen at a small function at Kumarakom Lake Resort on May 20, 2005.