Books, films, scripts and Television
K. Raghavendra Rao’s daughter-in-law Kanika Dhillon has quite an extensive resume
By : priyanka praveen
Update: 2014-08-19 23:02 GMT
Hyderabad: Hyderabadis know her as T-town director K. Raghavendra Rao’s daughter-in-law. But Kanika Dhillon is more than that. This bestseller author and scriptwriter has been working in the Hindi film industry for close to six years now and has dabbled in everything, from authoring books to cinema and TV.
Kanika, who in currently in Hyderabad after her marriage to Prakash, laughs when you ask her to name the last Telugu movie she’s watched. “Manam was my last Telugu film, I’ve watched two other films as well. One was Prakash’s film and the other a dubbed one,” she says after thinking for a bit.
“I met Prakash five years ago. He was developing content for Shah Rukh Khan’s Knight Riders and I was working on the same project; that’s how I know him. But we were just friends. It was just a year back that we started dating each other. I had no idea that one day we would end up getting married,” she says.
The London School of Economics student always wanted to be a writer. “That’s what I wanted to do. But my parents wanted me to concentrate on my studies so I joined the London School of Economics,” she says. During one of her visits to India to finish her thesis, one thing led to another and before she knew it, she was working with Farah Khan. “I assisted Farah on Om Shanti Om and later joined Red Chillies to work on Billu Barber,” she says. After Billu Barber, she went on to work with Shah Rukh Khan on Ra One. “Shah Rukh Khan is my mentor. He has always been guiding me.”
“SRK was also the one who launched my first book, Bombay Duck is a Fish,” she says.
Kanika has also worked with Ekta Kapoor as a content head and is all set to release her third book. But currently, she is busy writing for Yash Raj Films, “I have to get back to work by the end of August, I have loads of work waiting for me,” she says.
With less than two weeks left to head back to Mumbai, what about their honeymoon? “We honestly haven’t thought about it, but now, I think I’ll ask Prakash,” she laughs.
With a father-in-law who is famous for his movies, would we see a collaboration anytime soon? “I hope so. I would love to work on projects down South; I think it would be absolutely great,” she says.
“I’m working on a project with Prakash so I will be shuttling between the two cities. Also, now that my in-laws are here, Hyderabad will be another home,” she adds.