Achint Kaur has a devil-may-care attitude and no coy reservations. For instance, the tradition of treating age as the best-kept secret is unknown to her. In an industry where a few years too many could make the difference between being There and being Nowhere, Achint does not either hum or haw, "I will complete 28 years in December and in a few years I will be a middle-aged woman," she reveals.

But her frankness also has an ulterior motive -- she is too absent-minded to spin a consistent yarn. "Tomorrow I will forget the age I mentioned yesterday. Soon I will have 10 different ages printed in 10 different places." The spotlight caught Achint rather unexpectedly: she had settled into the sedentary groove of a housewife, until a family friend introduced her to the camera. Ad campaigns followed one after the other, including Ponds, Whirlpool, Hawkins, Bajaj, Park Avenue, Halls, Usha... She has done around 30 major ad campaigns in the last three years.

Her TV career flagged off with a pilot for NEPC, Kintu Parantu. A year later, it took flight with the role that made her career -- Anusha in Banegi Apni Baat. She's the insecure one with an arrogant exterior and a soft interior. As a child, Anusha witnessed her mother being murdered and grew up to be aloof, unpredictable and highly insecure.

Getting into the skin of this character was an uphill task. Achint admits that early on, she "had a screen presence, but the acting was !". She was so acutely aware of her shortcomings, that she refused other roles. "I wanted to first learn and only then accept other challenges. That was foolish -- it should have been the other way round."

Achint does not believe in rehearsals and prefers reading her lines just before she goes in front of the camera. "If you go prepared, your acting becomes mechanical. Worse, your understanding of the role may not be the same as what the director wants," she says. And though her other major project was Swabhimaan, Achint's favourite remains BAB. She disagrees that it was stretched ad nauseaum. "After working in Swabhimaan (over 400 episodes), how can I say BAB was stretched!" she says. "There was no generation lafda or das saal ke baad ki kahani...".

Achint has also been seen in Mirch Masala, Low Calorie Show, Telly Housie and Rishtey. She feels comfortable with comedy and has acted in a few episodes of Philips Top Ten. But she was equally at ease as a bhoot in Aahat and a green-eyed, purple-faced serpent in Captain Vyom, where she gets to slap Milind Soman. Next in line is a UTV serial called Kwaish, as also a project for Sudhir Mishra. Her ideal roles would be the kind played by Dipti Naval in saris and salwar kameez. "I am moving in that direction, I don't know whether I will arrive."

Achint has a low opinion of the current crop of serials: "The grip is not there. That `something extra' is missing," she claims. This standpoint -- combined with a tendency to babble her head off -- has also proved to be her biggest drawback. Whenever Achint was asked for her views on a programme, her standard reply was that the project was lousy. But to her great misfortune, more often than not, the chap asking the questions turned out to be either the producer or the director of that "lousy" project! "Now I try my best not to be blunt. It always lands you in a soup," she adds.

Achint doesn't party, and shies away from the media. Her life currently revolves around her career and her five-year-old son. "Don't ask me how it is working out! When it becomes a problem, I'll start wondering," she says.