Her emotional somersaults on the small screen tug at your heartstrings. Smriti Z. Irani aka Tulsi Virani, the chief protagonist of a soap saga, who's made countless tele-watchers weep, is a woman who can also make you laugh.

Think television post Doordarshan/cable, in India… and, you will think soaps. Think soaps…and, one of the first names that comes to mind is Tulsi Virani, the daughter-in-law turned mother-in-law in the small screen’s widely watched daily saga, Kyunki...Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. The epicentre of this familiar, familial melodrama, Tulsi, with her tear-drenched, kohl-lined eyes, is a towering figure on the idiot box… and, an icon to many, off it…

Apart from their spine of steel, Iraani feels she and her screen persona are like chalk and cheese. “To begin with, I look and dress differently in real life,” she laughs. So much so that when she walked in to the sets, a few days after shooting for the saga began, the watchman stopped her at the gate. “Tulsi, Tulsi” she muttered in embarrassment, and had to call someone from the unit to let her come in. Now the brand ambassador for Johnson and Johnson, she was not recognised again, when she landed up there for her shoot, in jeans and a T-shirt. “You should see people’s faces when they realise who I am,” she adds. “But, I do not blame them. Where Tulsi may walk slowly and soberly, I am like a whirlwind. I slam doors and barge in and out of rooms. And I am much more short-tempered.”

She shrugs off rampant rumours that she is quitting KSBKBT. “I hear these stories once a year and both Ekta and I laugh them off,” Iraani asserts. “We work well together; she is a great boss. Ekta was a bit worried that the time leap of 20 years in the serial has adversely affected my career. Talks are on to launch a new serial with me, once I return from my delivery, where I play a lawyer closer to my own life age.”