Bong beauty Sona Goldar wants to promote Bangla literature and admits she is a as good a cook as she is a model!
By Asmita Aggarwal
“In India, everyone considers my complexion dark, even though I am wheat-ish and not conventionally good looking, as I don’t have a commercial face,” says first time model at AIFW, Sona Goldar.
Born and raised on Kolkata, where she studied Bengali literature, her all-time favourite authors include Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay of Devdas fame. “Many people are writing in English, but I want to preserve and promote Bangla, so that our regional languages survive the onslaught of English. I also like Tagore’s Geet Bitan, which has his songs and poetry rather than his much talked about Choker Bali,” she says.
Even though it may sound clichéd, Sona from childhood wanted to be a model, as her two inspirations were model Noyonika Chatterjee and Ms Universe-turned-actress Sushmita Sen. “Noyonika at 40, looks fabulous and is an embodiment of grace and Sushmita just judged the Ms Universe completion, so she has remained relevant. Age is just a number, you must have a timeless charm that can propel you forward, which both these women possess in abundance,” she smiles.
At 22, and five feet ten inches tall, Sona is not a gym junkie, rather she likes to do yoga and running to keep fit, even though she says it is hard as she is a self-confessed foodie, who loves Bengali dishes. She can cook Shorshe (hilsa fish) jhaal with mustard as well as aloo posto cooked with turmeric, chilli and poppy seeds. “If I wasn’t a model, I would definitely be a cook or a writer as both these things interest me. I am also a pet lover and we have almost 20 cats at home in Kolkata who I miss terribly as now I am in Mumbai,” she laughs.
Born to a businessman father and a homemaker, Sona was supported by her family to take the plunge after she won a beauty contest in West Bengal and she moved to Mumbai two years ago. “Someday I want to go to do a Bollywood film, even though we have a legacy of great filmmakers like Satyajit ray and Aparna Sen in Bengal. I would like to work with Sanjay Leela Bhansali as his admire his larger-than-life approach to films as well as Tigmanshu Dhulia, who makes alternate cinema, where a face like mine will fit in,” she concludes.