Sangeeta Bijlani recollects how she entered showbiz! Says she was spotted at a glamorous event

Back in the 90s Sangeeta Bijlani enjoyed immense popularity as an actress. She was a part of nearly two dozen films before she left movies to live a married life with former husband, cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin. Recently, she was seen in a dance reality show as a celebrity judge. In fact, the actress who’s quite active on social media and in touch with her fans now wishes to make a comeback as an actor.
In a recent chat with Bombay Times, a nostalgic Sangeeta remembered how she entered showbiz back in the late 80s.She says, “I was spotted by (director) Rajiv Rai at a fashion show.” The actress shares that unlike the fashion shows of today, in the earlier days these used to a more informal affair. She recollects, “Those days fashion shows were quite entertaining. The models in the designer outfits would do choreographed dancing on hit numbers. I did one too. Seeing my performance Rai came backstage and spoke to me and my mom, who used to accompany me everywhere. The meeting went well and he signed me for my first film (Tridev).”
Once on board, the actress says that since she lacked a formal training in acting she was put through a process. “He gave me my signing amount and sent me to Roshan Taneja’s acting school. I did a three months acting crash course there. Soon, I started getting a lot of film offers. Like, I got JP Dutta’s Hathyar and then came Qatil. However, Tridev which I signed first became my third release and Qatil which got completed early became my first film that released.”
She signs off saying, “At that time Bollywood wasn’t too competitive. It was a happy family.”