Pooja reviving the endearing character of Maria in Sarigama
Pooja Umashankar, daughter of a Sri Lankan mother and a Kannadiga Brahmin from Karnataka, has won the honours for best and most popular actress in two different award festivals in Sri Lanka within one year, for the same film.
Pooja plays the lead role of Maria in Sarigama, a clever Sinhala remake of the Hollywood blockbuster The Sound of Music directed by Australia-based Sri Lankan film maker Somarathne Dissanayake. She won the Best Actress Award in Sarasaviya Film and returned to the podium of the Derana Film Festival to accept the honours in the Most Popular Actress Category.
Pooja is the second Indian actress to win accolades at a local film festival after Anjali Patel, an award-winning Hindi and regional languages star (Delhi in A Day, Newton, Mirzya, Kill the Rapist? and Prathyayam) who won the Sarasaviya Best Actress Award in 2016 for Prasanna Vithanage’s acclaimed Oba Nethuwa Oba Ekka (With or Without You).
Talking to popular Sinhala film weekly Sarasaviya, Pooja who was born at Colombo De Soyza Maternity Home, says her birth certificate had been written in Sinhala. “My career in Sinhala film industry is only 12 years old with seven films to my credit,” says Pooja who won the coveted Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Tamil) and Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Character Artiste for her role of a blind beggar in Naan Kadavul.
Pooja who speaks fluent Kannada, Sinhala, Tamil and English has appeared in several films made in regional Indian languages.
The actress with stunning looks and a bubbly personality studied for B.com and MBA at Mount Carmel College in Bangalore and was employed at Hindustan Unilever Limited as a manager when she was spotted by Jeeva who was looking for a fresh face for his Tamil film Ullam Ketmumae, to play the role of an Anglo-Indian girl. She said during an interview that she wanted to finish the film as soon as possible and return to her desk job thinking that her career was not in films, but her destiny had other plans for her future.
Her long list of Indian films includes Naan Kadawul, Jay Jay, Attahasam, Thambi Pori, Panthaya Kozhi (Malayalam), Jithan, Pattiyal, Thambi and Vidiyum Munn (nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil – in 2013).
Pooja made her Sinhala debut in 2006, three years after her first Tamil film Jay Jay, playing the lead role in Anjalika which became a huge box office hit at a time when Sri Lankan cinema was reeling under the intense competition from television. Since then she has become one of the most popular actresses and a bankable name in the industry.
In 2013 she acted in a Sinhala television serial Daskon, based on a French soldier’s tragic love affair with a Sinhala princess in the ancient Sinhala kingdom of Kandy. It became a popular TV drama going on to win 46 awards in multiple local ceremonies.
She says her mother’s name is Sandya and father is H.R. Umashankar. After her pre-schooling in Sri Lanka she moved with her parents to India and studied at Poornaprgnya in Aidur, Chakmagalur and then at Nirmala Convent in Mysore before pursuing higher studies in Bangalore.
Pooja and her controversy-prone playfulness had made her a constant hot topic in Sri Lankan gossip websites. She was dating well-known Sri Lankan Tamil model and fashion photographer Deepak Shanmuganadan. The alliance had not been a secret to those involved in the industry as the couple was regular at fashion shows and celebrity events. The affair did not last long as they called off their brief engagement citing differences of opinions.
Later she was romantically linked to handsome Sinhala heartthrob Roshan Ranawana. Both parties denied the rumours of an affair, with Pooja adding that at the time she was on the look-out for a partner as per her mother’s insistence.
Pooja married Sri Lankan Tamil businessman Prashan David Vethakan, a tea exporter, in a low-key ceremony in 2016.
In 2013, immediately after her film Vidiyum Munn there were rumours that Pooja was dating the hot Tamil hero Arya who paired with her in many films but later she denied that they were a couple.
At the Sarasaviya film awards ceremony her kiss for Prime Minister landed her in fresh controversy. She was seen landing a rapid peck on Prime Minister Ranil Wicremesinghe’s lips after receiving the award. Gossip sites went to town with the incident and later the actress denied that it was a lip-kiss. “It looked like that due to the particular angle the shot was taken and it was nothing more than an innocent kiss on the premier’s cheek” she later told a paper.
Previously she had been either won or nominated in the category of popular star and describes the Sarasaviya film honours as the best actress as wide recognition of her talent. She says she chooses her films carefully and the new honours are an encouragement to the future success of her film career. (www.newstrails.com)
