Varsha Hegde, who is the winner of the first season of Kiss Ishq N Konnections, comes from a conservative middle-class family, but that did not stop her from achieving her dreams. A self-made girl, she started earning at a very young age even for small things that are a child’s favourite.
“I was born and brought up in Dombivali. I come from a very dysfunctional family and there used to be no money to go to school or for food, even for Maggie or biscuits as we were very poor. So, I started earning at the age of four or five to pay my school fees, however I couldn’t continue my studies post 10th grade. My parents got me married in an arranged marriage when I was eighteen. The marriage turned out to be toxic. So I came out of that marriage and started from scratch,” she said.
Varsha loved dancing and got a diploma from Terence Lewis Professional Training Institute and then she pursued some fitness courses like muscle anatomy, body anatomy, and nutrition. She added, “I’m a self-made girl. First, I started taking Zumba classes, dance classes because that is what I loved and that is what I wanted to do post my divorce. I stood up again, but it was a difficult phase for me as I had no money. I used to divide one vada pav and eat it for two days because that’s what I could afford.”
It was during those classes when a friend of hers introduced her to Diva Yoga by Malaika Arora. They started sending me to Soho house, Mumbai, as a Zumba and dance instructor. “I used to teach celebrities, and they used to come to my classes and ask me ‘why don’t you try acting and modelling because you look beautiful’. I was very under confident about how I looked and how I’m. But they used to compliment me, and say that ‘you have a very unconventional and different look’. Initially, I didn’t believe them, but, during the lockdown, they used to send me audition details and I realised that if somebody was trying to convince me so much, then why not try it? So I tried and started getting a lot of offers, ads, and photoshoots. And I thought that it was my calling,” she said.
There was no looking back after that. Varsha then started getting a lot of offers, and she did cameos in TV shows and also episodic roles. “One day I got a call saying, ‘We really like your personality, your look and the way you talk. So we want you for a show which is like a month long’. I couldn’t believe my ears, because I never thought in my dreams that I could ever do a reality show, especially after a child and also my divorce,” she said.
“I think it has never happened that a divorcee is doing a reality show, and that too, a dating reality show. I just grabbed that opportunity and did my best. I also thought that doing a reality show might be my calling, because people would not know me as a certain character but people would start knowing me as Varsha Hegde. So I was very happy.”
