The young and beautiful Harshika Poonacha was in New York and her host Bharat Goradia chose to organize for the leading lady of many popular Kannada films a press conference on May 23 at Senior Care Center of Bobby Kumar in Hicksville.

In her exclusive conversation with The Indian Panorama editor Prof. Indrajit S Saluja she expressed her admiration for America and Americans. She said it was her second visit to America and she had visited quite a few locations. She said given an option she would like to stay and work in the US.

Ms Poonacha recalled that she was 15 and studying for her High Schoolin Bengaluruand was with her friends at a coffee shop when a gentleman (she learnt later he was Ramesh, a film maker) approached her with an offer to give her a lead role in a Kannada film he was planning. She thought it was just a ploy of the man to entice her. He said he wanted to make a film on changes young school children undergo.However, soon she learnt that the man was genuine and that his offer was a professional one. That was the beginning of her film career. The incident took place in 2008. And the film -PUC- was released in 2010.

Harshika said she has since acted in15 films which means an average of 2 films a year. She has worked till now in South movies only. She has worked in 12 Kannada, 2 Telugu and 1 Tamil film. However, she said she was waiting for an opportunity to do a couple of Hindi films. Though there are some offers, she said, she wanted a big launch and was not interested in run of the mill roles.

For her performance in the movie Tamastu, based on the subject of terrorism, Harshika received the Karnataka State Films Award. Her next big film which has not yet been titled is directed by the famous director Sunit Kumar Desai and is to be released in the next few months.