From anchoring news to acting in a horror short film, this bank officer indeed had a long and successful innings on Telugu telly.
And Kota Vijayalakshmi, an officer with the Corporate Accounts branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) after a brief hiatus from the television is now planning to return to her passion -- reading news.
Starting with Doordarshan, facing the camera initially for employment news and ‘Prabhata Darshini’, she made it to news presentation.
Almost a decade with DD later, Vijayalakshmi anchoring news with certain aplomb earned more appreciation with news on Gemini and Teja.
And then, there was also this tryst with ‘Teluguone.com’, first internet Telugu channel, doing news, voice-overs and interviews. Vijayalakshmi has just completed shooting for her role in the horror short film ‘Advika’ but is keen on returning to face the camera for news.
“News is my passion and after a break for personal reasons, I have decided to make a come back,” says Vijayalakshmi. Options being there, she wishes to make the best of the choice.
Her short hairstyle, in contrast to the regular look of anchors, has helped the news reader acquire a distinct identity among Telugu newsreaders. Vijayalakshmi used to have long hair in early days with television but when a news channel was being launched she was selected and sent to a hair stylist.
“The stylist ended up giving me this hairstyle. I liked it and though that channel later asked me to grow my hair to continue, I decided to retain it and went back to DD,” she laughs. Interestingly, her hairstyle got popular and few other news anchors too followed suit.
T. Lalith Singh
From anchoring news to acting in a horror short film, Kota Vijayalakshmi, a bank officer had a long and successful innings on Telugu television
