by Rinky Kumar
At the age of eight, Ayesha Dharker auditioned for Francois Villier’s Manika: Une vie plus tard. She got noticed for her intense big eyes, expressive smile and histrionic skills. Before she knew it, she was in movies, plays and tele-serials. Her latest films, Loins of Punjab Presents and Outsourced have been applauded by critics and audiences alike and won awards at several international film festivals. In the former, Ayesha plays the fiancé of a contestant trying to start a new kind of exercise fad called Joga, a combination of yoga and jogging. In John Jeffcoat’s Outsourced, she plays Asha, an Indian working in a call centre. Ayesha describes it “as a love story, not just between the protagonists but between India and the US.” Recently, the self -confessed sci-fi geek and loyal viewer of the Dr Who science fiction series said yes to acting in the project. “It’s like being a kid and seeing this whole bunch of children having fun. You are just happy sitting on the sidelines watching, but then they ask you to play....”
Verve, Volume 15, Issue 10, October, 2007
