“Honestly, Prachi is like a part of our family. My father, mother and I have adopted her. But as a producer I tortured the hell out of her. I made her work harder than any of my actors just because I was so close to her. Prachi feels that was unfair. But I didn’t want to be accused of favouritism. Now she’s moved on,” Ekta told IANS.

“Other actors have to give a two-three months notice before they leave Balaji. But I made her give me five months’ notice. I made her do extra work. At one time the poor kid was shooting for me, for her film with Farhan Akhtar ‘Rock On’ and for Sony’s reality show ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’ all at once. She was on the verge of collapse and we asked her to stop. But look at her spirit. Prachi insisted on continuing,” she added.

Ekta has decided to let Prachi, who was crowned the winner of the “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa” title, do films without any protest.

“Prachi was supposed to finish shooting ‘Kasamh Se’ at the end of January. But we couldn’t finish her work until March. Now Prachi has moved on to movies. And I’m very happy. Our serial also moves on. We’ve got Gurdeep Kohli to play Bani.

“I want Prachi to give films a sincere try. I’ve told her to keep away from television for six to eight months to focus on films. If, god forbid, it doesn’t work out, we’re there for her.”

Would Prachi make it when others from Balaji like Amarr Upadhyay, Chetan Hansraj and Shabbir Ahluwalia are still struggling for a foothold in films?

Ekta thinks Prachi stands a good chance.

“Prachi doesn’t have a burning ambition to make it into movies. She doesn’t go to meet film producers. On the contrary, they’re calling her. Nowadays there’s an acute shortage of heroines in the industry. I hope Prachi does well so that the myth about television actors not making it in films would break.”