The spell continues

Amarjot Kaur

Not so long ago, when Chandigarh lad Tejeshwar Singh auditioned for Punjab Fashion Week in 2011, prompted partially by a vanity-fuelled urge to walk the ramp and majorly because of his peers’ conviction of him being a ‘good-looking sardar’, his hopes were dashed down rather brutally by a designer, who grinned and smirked while taunting him, “You want to become a model!”

Today, Tejeshwar Singh is not only one of the two turbaned Sikh ramp models in the country, who walked the ramps for Lakme Fashion Week 2014 and recently for JJ Valaya with Akshay Kumar, but is also an actor, who will soon we seen in a Bollywood film Desi Magic, starring Amisha Patel.

“Well, I guess I am a passive aggressive that way and I took that taunt by the designer as a source of motivation. So, a year later, I showed up in shape and he had to swallow his words,” says Tejeshwar.

Before we could ask the designer if he could digest them (his words), Tejeshwar exclaims, “I recently walked the ramp for JJ Valaya with Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Lara Dutta, Prabhudeva and Sunil Sethi!”

For the love of modelling

As he gushes in the glory of his new found success, Tejeshwar, who has acted in several television shows, including Channel V Gumrah, Life Ok’s Naadan Parindey, Zindagi Wins on Bindas and Star Plus’s Nisha Aur Uske Cousins, shares that he finds acting more challenging that walking the ramp. However, he is irrevocably in love with modelling.

“Well, talking of putting in one’s creative abilities, acting is definitely a more challenging field, since you have to get into the skin of the character you are playing. However, in modelling, you bring your personality and attitude into to play,” he says.

Tryst with stereotypes

But battling then, ‘being himself’ was not just Tejeshwar’s battle against the rhetoric stereotypes that the identity of any turbaned Sikh is subjected to, especially in the fashion industry, it was more about proving himself.

“Well, it was quite challenging. Most modelling agencies wouldn’t take a turbaned, bearded Sikh model on the pretext of them not being able to fit in! But I’d rather have an identity that stands out. So, I swam against the current for a long time and finally bagged a chance to walk the ramp for Arjun Khanna in the Lakme Fashion Week this year. Besides, the new-age designers are all the more experimental,” he shares. Tejeshwar has already shared the screen space in a Best Deal commercial with Akshay Kumar.

Like the way you mov(i)e

Tejeshwar, who also appeared in the Punjabi film titled Patta Patta Singhan Da Vaeri, shares that he recently shot for the film Desi Magic. “I will be seen playing the role of Amisha’s brother-in-law. Almost 80 per cent of the film has been sho,” he says. Tejeshwar was earlier seen in a cameo in Bollywood film titled Fukrey. Besides, he will also be walking the ramp for the opening of Juicy Couture outlet at Elante on October 8 and 10. Well, we wish him all the best!

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