Setting eyes on K'town

Bharathi Rani Arunachalam, a Singapore-based actor-dancer, has not featured in Tamil films yet. However, she is already quite popular here for her extraordinary dancing skills. In fact she doesn’t need any introduction in Singapore, for she is playing pivotal roles in many primetime TV shows, and she has also acted in a superhit film helmed by director Jack Neo.

A few years ago, even actor Suriya, of whom Bharathi is a huge fan, had wished her on her birthday. The actress in a chat with DC, opens up about her aspirations and dreams about getting into Kollywood.

When asked if she has aspirations to act in Tamil cinema, pat comes the reply — “Of course, I do,” adding, “I would love to be in Mani Ratnam’s film. I love every single work of his and it would be a great honour to be a part of his art. And my all time favourite is Suriya. Acting with him will be a dream come true.”
However, dancing seems to be her first love — “I have been dancing for the past 14 years. I forget the world, I forget myself when  dancing. I have tried a few genres such as modern, contemporary, hip hop, K-Pop, semi-classical, Indian folk.”

However, Bharathi has one dance style which is pretty close to her heart — “ To be honest, my personal favourite is ‘kuthu’ dance.” She is also a part of a campaign which insists one to embrace their dark skin — “The campaign was done in relation to a TV show I was doing. The idea of the campaign was to embrace imperfections. Fair skin is mostly associated with beauty and dark skin with ugly. Why is it fair and lovely and not dark and lovely? Women want to be fairer, men want a fair bride. This idea has been around for ages and has affected many, including me. There were times I was called names, was rejected because of my skin tone. I wanted to prove that a dark skinned girl can be successful and I did. Dark is beautiful and I am proud of my skin.”