As a child artist Sarika has also played a boys role in the 1960's in Indian cinema. Sarika was very popular as child rtist in 1970s, and grow up to be a Bollywood awan. Sarika was one of the 80s top glamour girls as you will find in some of Sarika pictures, with supermodel good looks and a body to match. She was often cast as the vamp or 'Westernized Girl' and consequently because of the moral semiotics of 1980s Bollywood, almost always died at the end of the movie. She did many films with Sachin whom Sarika married. She has acted in many classic Indian films such as Kranti(1981). Sarika though did have a flourishing career as the glamorous vamp, her films like "Grihapravesh", "Kunwari Bahu", "Vidhaata" and "Nirvaan" created a sensation in the industry.
The camera loved Sarika and focused upon her with an obvious and blatant voyeuristic gaze. No matter how small a role she may have had in a film, the camera could always be counted on to feature at least one extreme close-up of Sarika's exquisite face.
Sarika began an affair with Kamal Haasan in the mid 1980s which led to him divorcing his first wife and eventually marrying Sarika. She settled into married life and retired from acting opting for the traditional role of wife and mother to the two daughters she had with Haasan. However Sarika remained active in the industry and became a noted costume designer mostly behind the films made by her husband. In 2000 she received awards for her costume design for "Hey Ram".
However Sarika got separated from Kamal Haasan (instigated by Haasan's alleged extramarital affair with South superstar Simran) and raising her two daughters, Sarika says, her life is her own(need to financially support her two daughters and herself). After a 17 year gap she has appeared in a Tamil film ‘PUNNGAI POOVE’. Also against Haasan's wishes, Sarika is supporting her eldest daughter's aspirations to be an actress. Sarika thought seems to be doing things her way now.Now independent sarika is getting more active in Industry. She is giving acting lessons for children because Sarika Kamal Hassan does not believe that ``acting has anything to do with the genes''. It is good for the industry as there are not enough schools for acting. The ‘theatre workshop for actors’ (TWA) started by Sarika, where 20 kids, including the little Hassans Shruti and Akshara learnt the ropewalk between theatre and cinema. Also sarika set up a school for costume designing called School of Fashion Technology (SOFT), in Pune in association with the Maharishi Karve Group. ``It is a specialised course for costume designing for performing arts - cinema and television''. ``It's more than just fashion designing, it's a different thing altogether,'' Sarika tells Sudhish Kamath on her plans for life.
So will we see Sarika- Kamal Hassan daughters(Shruti and Akshara) facing the lens? ``I don't know. Shruti...Yes, she seems to be interested for now. But we need to see if she has the talent. If you don't have the talent, no amount of training can help,'' believes Sarika. Report is that Kamalhasan’s elder daughter Sruthi is all set to make debut as heroine in a Hindi film of Mansoor Khan.
Having got the series of acting workshops launched, Sarika now believes that first, the TWA needs to establish its credibility. ``We are in no hurry,'' she says. ``It's a big responsibility. We need to be sure of what we are doing, none of us should walk out''.
Sarika likes to do her homework well. That is why she is spending most of her time now setting up the School of Fashion Technology (SOFT) in Pune in association with the Maharishi Karve Group. ``It is a specialised course for costume designing for performing arts - cinema and television''.
``Costumes make a difference to a film. Our (code of costume designer's) input comes in as much as the others who contribute to the film. But there is no separate course for this here,'' Sarika says. The course will commence in August 2001.
