We grow up with tales from childhood and in our heads those incidents become folklore. In an age when infants learn to crawl and walk…am given to believe I started to talk just when I was only eight months old. I had already begun to speak complete sentences. For my doctor it was like ‘kuch toh alag hai’.... only to discover over the years “ki hamari beti bolti bahut hai” and so I got the title, ‘Basanti ki beti’. But come to think of it…if I started talking before walking, it looked like a sign of divine intervention, a sign of things to come, a sign of what I was born to do, of what destiny had in store for me. And so to cut a long story short, after finishing my graduation and getting bored with designing clothes I landed the job of a radio jockey! So finally I was being paid for something I did naturally….that is talking 19 to the dozen. But life was going to get better and better for me as my secret dream of being an actor started finding wings. I got the opportunities to nurture it, hone my acting skills and begin a journey I always wanted to go on. Remembering my days with the National FM band back then in Delhi, being selected as a RJ for an English music show, I threw up my hands in the air in dismay because I knew NOTHING about English music. Blues was a colour and not a genre of music for me then! So feeling like a lost puppy in woods I took up the challenge and found my way into the world of English music and out into the Hindi music programmes to become the only jockey who did bi-lingual shows. My stint as a RJ taught me to talk and talk some more conviction even if at times you were bullshitting. It was a big high when for the first time someone asked me, ‘Are you a RJ, Pragati?’ He then told me how he loved my show and listed all the topics I had spoken on while in my head I was thinking, “Could he be seeing me on radio?’ For me, it was like signing my first autograph. Then came the transition to being an anchor and when the acting bug bit me, another journey began for me altogether. In a nutshell, Basanti ki beti is going to keep talking to you to from now on…every week. I hope you enjoy reading my blah! Because I have realised talking pays and how! Disclaimer: the views expressed in this column are those of the author and TellyChakkar does not necessarily subscribe to the same.