Television has suddenly turned into a happy hunting ground for Bollywood misfits. After the stupendous success of Ronit Roy, Apoorva Agnihotri and Tisca Chopra, the latest to join the telly bandwagon is Yukta Mookhey, who will soon be seen in an adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's novel, Gruhadaaha. The former Miss World seems to carry no baggage of her Bollywood days and has a charm that makes you like her in an instant. Yukta Mookhey spoke to Ananya Sengupta about her career in films and her dreams of tellydom. Are you doing Gruhadaaha? Well, I am still negotiating! Only if we could believe everything we read in those papers! We are still negotiating. So what made you consider this offer? First of all, this show is a classic. It has a very woman oriented storyline and a very strong character for me. Rakesh had told me about this a year earlier. I kept on telling him to make a film on the story, but he stuck to his guns. He said that "There's an innocence in your eyes that is a rare thing for a person who has been part of the film industry" and this was flattering! I am very excited about the role, and I hope evrything works out well! But it's too early to say anything now! But you are keen to do television... Yes, I am! I have been ready to do TV for some three years now, and I had got great offers as well, but unfortunately, I was committed to some movies then. My producers felt that if I did TV then they would have problems ditributing the films, so I refused TV then. But now I want to do TV, I have consciously not taken up any films. What kind of charcaters do you want to do? I want to play strong characters and frankly speaking television is more elevating as far as women are concerned. Atleast here, the bahus don't shed their clothes in the name of acting! Really, Bollywood is a dirty place, it's really degrading. Whenever I go out today, I see that people are more excited about seeing Mihir than a Shahrukh Khan. It is amazing to see the reach and demand of television. Were you depressed at any point of time when you were doing roles that didn't satisfy you? That never happened because I am a very creative person, I believe in moving on. And frankly speaking, I always wanted to do something that would inspire young minds. I want to do my own chat show, something like Oprah Winfrey Show. I didn't want to end up doing sleazy roles. I am sad for those girls who are so insecure about their talent that they have to do these kind of things! But that's how it is in the industry. Even fine actors like Madhuri Dixit and Kajol had to wait to get their first great role! Didn't people warn you not to try television at this point in your career? Quite the contrary. Everyone who knows me knew that I wanted to do a chat show of my own. They advised me that this is the right time for me to do TV. They said,"If you have made up your mind, then don't wait." Anyways, I feel that it is the film industry's loss that they couldn't retain a good actress like me!