Another Kolhapure sister set to make her debut

mumbai: tejaswani kolhapure, youngest sister of 80's leading lady padmini kolhapure, is all set to make her film debut in her brother-in-law tutu sharma's production paanch. a rather attractive cross between sisters shivangi and padmini, it is but a matter of time before tejaswani comes under arc lights. having a producer at home, was it not a foregone conclusion for tejaswani that she would be launched by her brother-in-law? "when i decided i'd like to act, i told tutu.at around the same time satish kaushik was making this serial mujhe chand chahiye and he spoke to tutu, who in turn told me and i did the role. "but tv becomes tedious after a time and i knew i did not want to take it as a career," says tejaswani. "and tejaswani cannot be made to do anything she doesn't want to," grins her sister, padmini. "even as a chil, she was so stubborn that we had to make her do things by telling her not to do them. if we wanted her to eat we'd say don't eat food today and she'd scream that she wanted to eat. "so we had to manipulate her all the time - we'd say don't take a bath today and she'd run and take a bath out of sheer fury," padmini recalls. there is a large age gap between tejaswani and elder sisters shivangi and padmini, who treated her like a baby. one of their favourite pastimes was to put her in the lift of their building with shivangi on the upper floor and padmini on the ground floor. they would keep pressing the lift button both ways so that she would be going up and down without being able to get out. "she'd holler and then we'd take her out and pacify her," padmini says, adding "i don't know why we did it but she was so stubborn that her stubbornness used to get to us." teju, as she is called by friends, laughs "padmini is like a worried mother... shivangi on the other hand empathises much more with my desires. so if it's advice i want to hear, i go to shivangi, but if it's advice that is going to do me good i go to pandi." both the sisters treat tejaswani as a daughter because of the age gap and she does not even remember padmini's peak period as an actress. "all i do recall is that i shared a room with her which she didn't like at all. she used to be mean to me and pinch me and never tell me anything," grumbles tejaswani good-naturedly. she recalls that once she insisted on going with padmini to a film party and a howling teju had her way with her mother intervening. midway through the party at searook hotel, padmini slipped away and met tutu. "i didn't know who this guy was and the two of them were talking nineteen to a dozen. they bought me a hamburger and ignored me - and a very bad hamburger too. and i decided that it was tutu's fault that it was so bad. it was after a long time that i figured out that they were meeting secretly," says tajaswani. once tejaswani found the photographs of the two in padmini's handbag and hid them in her own drawer. just as quietly padmini took them back and none of them said a word to each other. tejaswani would sing the popular number don't mess with my tu-tu to provoke padmini, but an excellent actress that she was, padmini would just stare blankly. "padmini was only 14 when she became a leading lady and when i watched her later i was astounded at the maturity of her performance," says teju. after mujhe chand chahiye, teju asked padmini if she could act and she said yes. then after seeing the rushes of paanch, she said teju was "pretty good". with teju out of room, padmini says she is natural as was she incidentally, but she wasn't half as hardworking as teju is. she feels proud of her younger sister. padmini has never interfered in her career or personal life, but when teju needs a shoulder to cry on, she is there. padmini reflects "the earliest sign tejaswani showed of wanting to be in the media was when she wanted to model. i just couldn't understand the desire, i'd consider advertising more comfortable than doing ramp but of course she had the height and style and looks and she succeeded. then she entered the miss india contest and won the miss photogenic title. she really is photogenic. i think she has a bright future." amidst all this, screams teju "i have three mothers, mum and these two sisters who i have to constantly remind that i'm grown up now and have a mind of my own. and they've only recently started realising it."