Sunaina, who is best known as Dr. Anjali Gupta in the popular medical drama Dil Mill Gaye, teamed up with her friend, telly actress Dimple Inamdar, who was seen in the tearjerker Aathvan Vachan, for the show.
Rinky Kumar
Television artiste Sunaina Gulia lived life on the wild side in The Amazing Race Asia Season 4.
As a child, television actress Sunaina Gulia enjoyed watching treasure -hunt shows and wished to participate in one such programme in her life. This year, she got an opportunity to realise her dream by participating in the famous adventure reality show The Amazing Race Asia Season 4. Currently being aired on AXN, it features 10 teams comprising two members each, who have to finish several tasks, in a race around the world.
Sunaina, who is best known as Dr. Anjali Gupta in the popular medical drama Dil Mill Gaye, teamed up with her friend, telly actress Dimple Inamdar, who was seen in the tearjerker Aathvan Vachan, for the show. The duo, who first met each other on the sets of the tele-serial Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa eight years ago, has been the best of pals since the last three years. The travel freaks have visited more than 20 destinations across the globe and have tried their hands at adventure sports like sky-diving in Greece and surfing in Brazil. The Amazing Race Asia was on their ‘to-do’ list.
They started off by sending across their three-minute audition tape for the show. The best friends narrated their love for adventures sports and desire to live life on the dangerous side in the video. But their tape was not ready on time. However, luckily, due to popular demand, all applicants got an extension. Since Sunaina was suffering from appendicitis and had to be hospitalised, the tape’s final segment was shot in the hospital. The 31-year-old added an emotional albeit slightly melodramatic touch to her plea for participating in the show. Finally, Sunaina and Dimple were selected. The other teams comprised a father-daughter duo, martial arts experts, tattoo artists, social workers and musicians from different parts of Asia.
Sunaina says, “We have lived and travelled alone. We are intelligent, resilient individuals and wanted to push ourselves to the limit in this show.” They trained for 90 days and learnt martial arts. Apart from jogging and doing yoga, they also religiously watched the previous episodes of The Amazing Race Asia.
Quiz her about the experience in the show and she says, “Everyone should try it. It’s simply amazing. You end up doing a lot of crazy stuff but in the process discover who you really are.” She recalls that she had to do white-water rafting and scuba-diving that she had never attempted before. “I was extremely scared. I thought I would hit my head on the rocks and we had to maintain our balance on a raft in the midst of a mad, raging river,” Sunaina explains. Besides these daredevil stunts, the telly actresses also had to do crazy tasks like dressing up as ancient warriors in a village and eating 100 meatballs at one go.
Apart from getting in touch with her adventurous side, this show also proved to be a learning experience for Sunaina. She says, “I can never wake up in the morning without a strong cup of coffee. But in The Amazing Race Asia, I could sleep for only two hours and didn’t need coffee to wake up.”
Sunaina admits that before entering the show, everyone had warned her that it might jeopardise her friendship with Dimple. But she clarifies that her stint at The Amazing Race Asia strengthened their bond. She says, “We balanced each other. Though I lost my temper a couple of times, Dimple was calm and collected.” Ask her if we will soon see her in any other Indian reality show and she smiles, “I’m not too fond of dancing. But I would love to be a part of an adventure reality show.”
October 22, 2010 Screen
