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Mona Singh relives her highs and lows as 'Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin' draws to a close and feels elated about its tremendous response in a chat with After Hours

You have won the ITA (Indian Television Awards) for two consecutive years. How does it feel?

Last year I was delighted to win my first award as an actor. But I was sad that I had to receive the award as Jassi and not as Mona Singh. I wanted the world to recognize that it was Mona who had successfully created Jassi and made her so believable and endearing. People were also expecting to see the real person behind Jassi but that did not happen. Nevertheless the thrill and exhilaration of being super successful made up for that.This year I was very happy to appear as myself and make my parents feel proud of me.

Don't you miss the old Jassi with braces and glasses?

I don't miss her. I feel relieved for finally being able to appear as myself. In the initial days as Jassi, it felt great. I thought of myself as a super person, who made the entire country crazy about her. But after a while it started getting claustrophobic; living somebody else's life, day in and day out. Anyone else would have simply gone mad.
Nobody else has gone through such an experience in India. I had to constantly be someone I was not.

But didn't it give you so much adulation?

As a character Jassi was a dream debut. The kind of love and adulation that Jassi got was unthinkable. But personally it was suffocating for Mona.

So you missed out doing normal things during that period?

You bet I did! I could not go out to eat at a restaurant or see a film or step out on the street. The schedules were so hectic that I hardly got time for anything else. I could only go for a late night show. But then, all through, I had to keep my mouth shut since my voice is a total give away. I sneaked out to visit close friends and was careful about even stepping into a lift.

How did you cope with the media?

The media went berserk and tried to hound me like the paparazzi. Photographers used to wait in alleys just to click me sans my Jassi get up.

Now that Jassi is being pushed off its original slot, do you feel sad?

Not really! We had a good innings for two years and it's high time for a new vibrant show to occupy prime time space. I have got an indication that Jassi will wind up soon. In fact, the original show whose format we were inspired by, ended immediately after the makeover, where the girl gets married to her boss.

How do you feel when you see so many Jassi-inspired soaps?

It feels great that the show has generated such a response and that producers are moving away from saas-bahu soaps and showing women in a more positive light. It reinforces the belief that you don't necessarily have to be glamorous to be successful or sought after.
sudchat@rediffmail.com

When Amarr Upadhyay was shown as dead in the popular series 'Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi' four years ago, it created a furore - prominently because the couch potatoes were too much in love with their favourite on-screen character. They wanted him alive!

Circa 2005 and surprisingly, Ronit Roy essays Mihir Virani in the same show, with as much fame. Even more astonishing is that today there are no takers for Upadhyay, proving once again that it is the characters that make celebrities rather than vice-versa.

Agrees Nivedita Basu, deputy creative director, Balaji Telefilms, "The idea of a daily soap is to permeate into the psyche of the viewers and that's why you see characters becoming celebrities more so often."

She cites the obvious example of Mona Singh (of 'Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin' fame). "Clearly, they remember the face, not the name," she says.

This phenomenon isn't new - the epic 'Mahabharat' and 'Ramayan' in the late '80s yielded many such celebrity characters. Most of them gained God-like status. But equally proven is the fact that these actors rarely emerged out of their characters with an identity of their own.

Puneet Issar, better known all his life as Duryodhana from 'Mahabharat', offers an interesting perspective. "It is very easy to get typecast in one image. The only way out of being trapped in a particular image is to keep doing other things simultaneously. Like, I was also doing films around the time 'Mahabharat' was at its peak, which really helped."

Arun Govil from 'Ramayan' feels that television today has a short memory span. "People remembered me as Lord Ram because 'Ramayan' was an epic. More so, it was about Indian culture and a part of our religion. Modern-day television characters are vanished in a year's time. There is no substance and no recall value. Though many serials of the late '80s and early '90s are forgotten, 'Ramayan' is still watched. Ram and Sita will continue to live on - these new guys will not."
s_ayaz@dnaindia.net