Sagarika

"I feel cheated....." Sagarika is still licking the wounds inflicted by Zee when the channel dumped her unceremoniously as the Antakshari hostess after just a couple of episodes. The petite Bengali singer however is not willing to take it lying down, she tells Vickey Lalwani. We are surprised to see you out of 'Antakshari' so soon? You can say that again!! Were you contracted for a specific duration? Yes. My contract got over. But later I learnt that the contract was designed in a way to suit Pallavi Joshi's convenience. I was a stop-gap arrangement. So why didn't you confront the channel? Frankly, I learnt this from a Marathi newspaper and dismissed it as a rumour. Things were rolling fine at the time. I could have asked Gajendra Singh about it as he was pretty close to us. As you know, my brother Shaan is doing a show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa for him. But I trusted him. I thought it would be silly and immature to ask him something that I had read. I thought if there ever was something like that, Singh would have told me about it. But alas! Did you feel cheated? 'Cheated' is the right word. If that was the case, I wish they had been transparent to me about it. And then you confronted him? 'Arre nahin yaar. Kya fayda hota?' The damage had been done. And then I realised that I had been taken for a ride. Could you elaborate on that? When I joined, he kept telling me that he wanted to induct some youth element into his show. We had many meetings. I offered several inputs. But he never incorporated any. How did Shaan take it? Shaan was disgusted. He rang up Singh's wife Ashwini and had a big showdown with her. But he is still doing 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'? Yes. That's for professional reasons. But I am sure that the relations between Singh and him are not as good as they were. A Zee spokesperson said that you couldn't induct the youth element they were looking for? Is Pallavi youthful according to you? No comments. Anyway, think of it, what was my role? I was just an add-on. The entire spotlight is on Annu Kapoor. The same spokesperson said that you were not in sync with Annu... (Interrupts) I had no problems with Annu Kapoor. As of now, how are your relations with Gajendra Singh? Zero. What's next on television? I have conceptualised a cookery show for Zoom. I am waiting for their reply.