FTII Pune

"When Danny Denzongpa was a star, nobody took my desire to become an actor as a joke. I never felt discriminated against, but at some level my features did stand in the way to getting roles. For example, no one would cast me as Hema Malini’s brother,” recalls Phonsok Ladakhi.

Well-versed in Marathi, 78-year-old ‘Parubai’ as she is fondly called, started earning her living at the film school, sifting through glass, metal, used papers and plastic to be sold as scrap.