They say you can’t really take Hyderabad out of a Hyderabadi. Model-turned-actress Shaurya Chauhan, a state-level gymnastics player, confesses that while her move to Mumbai might have been purely due to professional reasons but “Hyderabad” means a lot to her. “I’ve spent the most amazing years growing up here. I just need an excuse to come home,” she says wistfully during a whirlwind trip to the city.

A city model, Shaurya has worked with the  likes of Prabuddha Dasgupta and Rafeeq Syed, been a swimsuit calendar girl and is now making her Bollywood debut. She essays one of the lead roles in John Matthew Mathan’s Right Ya Wrong, costarring Himesh Reshammiya and is also doing a reality TV show, Making The Cut. For someone like her who’s dabbled in some theatre as well, (“I played a lead role in Raja Bahadur where I worked with Nadira Babbar” and says the “immediate response” the “warm applause” is heady.

Ask her why she hasn’t taken part in any beauty pageants as most models tend to and Shaurya says she’s “past the stage” where she can take part in one. For now films are what she’s totally passionate about. “You get to live in someone else’s skin for a while, be happy, sad, look good -it’s a great feeling to be on camera,”admits Shaurya who’s reading some more scripts. Her other passion is to put on her travel shoes once in a while to “discover a whole new me.” And like most Hyderabadis, Shaurya’s also quite keen on a career in Tollywood. “I am a die hard fan of Puri Jagannath as well as Ram Charan Tej and hope to work with both some day,”she says. Until then of course, her ad campaigns, new theatre projects and films will take up asign if i cant amount of her time. Not necessarily in that order though.