Neha Hinge, the two-film-old actor to be seen in Vijayendra Prasad’s next hails from a small town in Indore. She gets chatty about her journey from being an employee in Accenture to winning the Miss India title and finally landing up at films, which only happened by chance with Luv U Soniyo followed by the Tamil film Sagaptham.

My parents live in Pune and I keep going out of Mumbai and Pune. Now since I work in Hyderabad, I keep shuttling between three cities. I am a homesick girl and keep going home as soon as I get a few days off. I have a sister who is nine years younger to me. I won the Miss India title in 2010 even while I was working for an IT company. I am a software engineer by profession working for Accenture for two years, am an ACP Coder. I was a distinction student basically into Robotics and never close to acting. After winning the Miss India title, I started modelling as I was tall, doing ramp work, advertisements. Then, I also did a Hindi film. Subsequently I got many offers from South but I wasn’t sure if I would work because of the language. Acting happened by chance. I have always been a very adventurous person and I am a national level gold medal champion in soft ball which I have played for ten years of my life. I do dance besides acting amongst many things and by nature, I am a very tenacious person attached to my things. You won’t believe it, I have been wearing my old pyjamas for so many years.

Now that I am into films, I am hooked on to this. This includes every part of film making and the entire process. Dad encouraged me to get into films when I was offered the opportunity. I always thought that after ten years of acting, I can go back to IT and start my own company. Ten years is all I have to prove myself. I am very practical and know the pros and cons of this industry though I can’t judge what’s coming next. I did “Luv U Sonio” and it didn’t do well, which I was prepared for, anyway. This Telugu movie offer came very abruptly when someone got my number and called me. I googled for Vijayendra Prasad and got to know that he was the man behind Magadheera and Makkhi. Apparently, the only Telugu films I saw were these two. The director was hunting for the right face for two years and one fine day, I went for the audition and came home with a contract paper. My parents were shocked. It all happened very quickly. There is some portion of this film to be shot and lots of post production to be done.

The journey towards Miss India and ultimately winning it, means a lot to me. I would always dream of it since I was five year old. My mother says as a seven year old, I had written in my diary that I wanted to be a beauty queen and be Miss India. Miss India for me was not about modelling or looking good. I thought the beautiful women out there were are well learned, do social work,travel around the world and are very cultured. I have always been lean, thanks to my DNA, but I trained a lot. I joined the classes and grooming process started – how to face the camera , what to talk and not to, how to eat. It took nine months. I left my highly paid job and took a loan to buy clothes and other things. You have to be picture perfect and learn everything about make up, dresses. I would go to office at 8am and in the noon, I would change clothes and go for classes. I would return at 7pm  and work till ten at the office and then go to the gym and return at 12pm. I would be back to work at eight again. After all the grooming, I took a one month leave and I never went back.

The project managers are all friends of mine. They had an office party and I was invited. Though I quit, we still have a great time and keep in touch. I was brought up in a small town, Dewas, whose name  appeared in Wikipedia only after I won the title. It is a small town in Indore. Whenever I get down the airport at Hyderabad and see Accenture, I  feel nostalgic. I spent so many beautiful moments there. Being Miss India was planned but not an actor for sure. Every night, I  go to sleep and look forward to the next day of shoot. I thoroughly enjoy this process.