Ray's treasure hunt

After a successful battle with cancer, former model Lisa Ray is launching a TV show on jewellery. She tells Aabhas Sharma that she now takes nothing for granted.

The most obvious question to ask model-turned-actress Lisa Ray is how she overcame cancer. Ray, on her part, has been talking about her battle with — and recovery from — cancer for close to two years now. “Enough has been spoken and written about it,” she says on the sidelines of launching her new TV show titled Oh My Gold! on Discovery’s Travel and Living channel.

The show gave the half-Bengali, half-Polish Ray a chance to explore the culture of India through something she loves — jewellery. She travelled to Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi and says that, being a woman, jewellery always fascinated her. “Meeting various people who make exotic jewellery and finding out their history and tradition was an enlightening experience,” she explains. In Chennai, she found that a lot of jewellery is inspired by mythology. In Hyderabad, she came across a woman who makes jewellery from spices.

 

Ray’s tryst with India began about 16 years ago when she burst on the scene as one of the most sought-after models. She featured in a few music videos as well and Hindi movies followed. She made her debut in 2001 with a suspense thriller called Kasoor. But Bollywood wasn’t her calling and she did not do any other mainstream Hindi movie after that. “I like working in movies but they have to really appeal to me,” she says. She worked with Deepa Mehta in Water as well as Bollywood/Hollywood and did a few movies in Hollywood as well. Growing up in Kolkata, she found the song and dance routine of Bollywood movies enchanting but never wanted to be an actor. “It just happened by chance and I never planned to do a certain number of movies,” she says.

However, in 2009 her life changed dramatically when she found that she was suffering from a rare cancer of the bone marrow. The conversation invariably leads to the topic she does not want to talk too much about. “I never once thought that I wouldn’t recover from it and always kept the faith,” she says. It took her almost 12 months of treatment to come out of it. She believes that she is a completely changed person now and has a positive outlook towards everything in life. A staunch believer in yoga, she says that she’s learnt to take care of herself more. She has even started her own yoga centre in Toronto, Canada. “I have been doing yoga for the past 12 years now and it is an important part of life,” she says.

Talking about her show, she says that looking at the jewellery from south India was a fascinating experience. What she loved the most was that she could be herself on the show. “People were kind and shared some great stories about their work,” she says with a smile. She is looking forward to seeing how people react to the show and is confident it will be appreciated by many, “especially women”.

Ray is in no rush to plan things in life and is taking whatever comes her way. She might do movies if they appeal to her sensibilities and is not averse to working in TV as well. Even theatre is something she would consider doing. “I am taking nothing for granted and want to enjoy every moment of life,” she signs off.