By Subhash K Jha

She no longer cries at the drop of a hat, like she used to on Bigg Boss.

"But you've to understand that I had never been away from home, always a papa's pet. Suddenly I was thrown among all these people like Kashmera and Rakhi who were far more in-charge, women of the world.

I had no choice but to deal with the situations in the best way possible. And if tears were the solution, so be it," explains Rupali.

Rupali, who recently started shooting her first new serial since Bigg Boss, is appalled by Kashmera's suggestion that she 'played' the crybaby on the reality show.

"Who is she to talk about what I was doing there? I can't talk for the others whom she has named in her interview.

But speaking for myself, every tear that I cried on Bigg Boss was genuine. I came out of the experience wounded and cringing. And if I hadn't been eliminated I'd have probably jumped the wall and fled."

To compound her woes, Rupali came out of Bigg Boss to find het father, the renowned director Anil Ganguly seriously ill.

"From then on it has been a whirlwind of hospitals, anxieties and prayers. Fortunately my father is out of danger. And I'm back to work. My father is not cut out to be a part of Bollywood's rat race, or to deal with the star system. He now helps me out with the ad agency that I own."

She started shooting for a new serial Ek Packet Ummeed this week.

"It's something new for me from the same people who produced my last serial Sarabhai Versus Sarabhai. Actually I lost a lot of time because I was waiting for another season of Sarabhai to start.

But I'm glad I'm doing Ek Packet Ummeed with such talented actors like Neena Kulkarni and Sulabha Deshpande. The whole idea of being an actor is to grow, and make my parents proud."

Rupaly's father was livid when she played the Bad Woman on the medical saga Sanjeevani.

"To him my role of the scheming Simran was an out-and-out vamp's role, a cross between what Binduji and Padma Khannaji used to do. It was only later when people told him they liked me in the serial that he forgave me."

But the sweet-natured Ganguly has realized she isn't cut out fir cattiness in soaps or on a reality show.

"In Ek Packet Ummeed I play a very positive character. It's about a family of strangers, people who stay together in a hostile city. The tagline Bin Rishton Ke Rishte says it all."

Tell her she's the small-screen's Shabana Azmi, and Rupali is delighted. "I've been told about the facial resemblance. I saw her at a play and she was smiling at me. I almost burst into tears. But I had the presence of mind to gather myself together and say hello to Shabana."