The pretty Preetika Rao from Beintehaa is still in the process of recovering from viral fever but the actress has been shooting round the clock despite her illness. She says, “For the past few days I have barely been able to walk due to the weakness. But when you are part of a daily show, you cannot afford to fall ill. I have had just 20 days off in the last 11 months and everybody is equally burdened when you realise there is no footage left for tonight’s episode. You just try to look okay and continue.”
Preetika is being extra particular about having only home-cooked food these days. “I want to avoid what is served on the sets,” she says.
While the show has always been popular, of late fans have been tad unhappy with her character Aaliya’s remarriage track. In fact the script had to be changed due to dripping TRPs. Speaking of that she says, “The idea behind the storyline is to show the Muslim laws of marriage, divorce and remarriage.
So accordingly, Aaliya was shown marrying Rehaan, and we were trying to establish a nice relationship. The audience could not see Aaliya with any other guy except Zain. So the channel and production house had to take a decision, the story was fast-tracked by a couple of months, so that Aaliya could be back again with Zain.”
One wonders what do her friends and family have to say about her busy schedule. Preetika says, “My sister Amrita (Rao) was already into cinema, so they were used to it. But none of us had an idea about how hectic TV would really be. Friends do feel frustrated as I don’t have time to catch up but I take it as a compliment when they say they have forgotten who Preetika is and only know Aaliya. The only time I have for myself is when I’m travelling to and from the set. I use those 45 minutes to catch up with fan reactions on Twitter or make important phone calls.” Besides acting Preetika is also passionate about singing. She says, “If I ever do Bollywood movies, I would like to do my own playback. My co-star Neil Motwani and I have these karaoke sessions in between shots and the song we love currently is Hangover from Kick. In fact we were even toying with the idea of recording it and uploading on YouTube.” Now, isn’t that something Preetika’s fans would love?
