Ashish Mitra
Zee TV's Maayka recently changed hands and caused a lot of upheavals. Yet the serial has a got a good viewership and the TRPs are rising. A ringside view of the show:
he day of Soni's ( Shilpa Shinde) marriage has arrived and there is a lot of hustle bustle in the house. Some men are seen decorating the hall with flowers, while in the foreground some women are practising the dhol and humming marriage-related folk songs. Soni is sitting in the centre with her palm pointed upwards as mehendi is being applied. Down comes Durga (Aroona Irani) in a happy mood. Seeing a decorator going up the stairs, she stops him and exclaims," dekho...aaj poora ghar phoolon se achchi tarah saja do...hamari taraf se aaj kisi bhi tarah ki koi kami nahi rehni chahiye...Yeh din dobara nahin aayega. "Cut" says director Kamal Mongia and there is a small break in which the camera is to catch a glimpse of the huge hall and simultaneously take a closer look at the proceedings. Assistant director, Vikas Nirmale, is overseeing the proceedings. Cornering him for a small chat, we ask him about the story of Maayka. "The story is of Durga who schemes against Soni, the sister of Durga's eldest son Veer's deceased wife Raji. Finding no one on whom Soni could fall back upon after her parents death, Veer had got Soni to stay with them after his wife's demise. Durga's daughter Jyoti (Karuna Varma) also assists her mother in her schemes and they both collude to get Soni married to a man around fifty years." Just as Nirmale was completing his sentence, a voice shouted, Ready boys, chalo shot ki liye taiaar ho. The artistes take their place, the camera is in position and the shot is ready to be canned. Soni is looking sad and is teary eyed. She is looking at her palms, meanwhile the camera pans at Durga who is looking at Soni with a smile of victory and thinking about something. She sees a man who is hurriedly going upstairs with a plateful of laddoos. Durga asks him to wait, takes a bite of a laddoo and screams,' "Chi laddoo itne meethe kyun hai. Tere malik ka kya cheeni ka gudaam hai? ja jake badli karke la". The man nods his head and leaves the scene. To her astonishment, Durga finds her daughter Jyoti standing beside her. After exchanging a few pleasantries, they move towards the centre of the hall towards Soni. The shot is over and the director calls for a lunch break. The artistes and the entire crew have been working since 10 am in the morning and are naturally hungry. The artistes are hurriedly going to their retiring rooms where they will have their lunch. We see Aroona Irani passing by and ask her if she would care to give a few bytes. About her character in Maayka, Aroona says, "Once Zee decided to change and hand over the reins to Creative Eye, Dheerajji called up asking me if I would work for this serial. The character fascinated me immensely as it's inspired from my role in Beta. Since I hadn't played a negative character for long, I felt weird shooting with such a different and gaudy look inspired from the '70s as I don't use such make up anymore." On being asked to elaborate, Aroona says, "Mine is a central character of a possessive mother. Durga loves her daughter and her sons, but cannot tolerate any outsider. Durga never liked my daughter-in-law Raji or evenher sister Soni. Getting rid of Soni by getting her married off is a victory for her." | | < = src="http://banners.expressindia.com/banner/screen/si_story300x250.js"> < = src="http://banners.expressindia.com/adsnew/adjs.php?para=no&n=881490512&what=zone:574&target=_blank&exclude=," =text/> < marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src=" http://c2.zedo.com/jsc/c2/ff2.?n=720;c=27;s=28;d=9;w=300;h=250" Border=0 width=300 scrolling=no height=250 allowTransparency></> | Talking of her association with the channel, Aroona says, "Zee is the channel from which I began my career on television as a producer a few years ago. Now I am back to the channel producing shows and acting in it." Aroona has so far produced Rabba Ishq Na Hove, Mehndi Tere Naam Ki and Tum Bin Jaoon Kahan for Zee. Aroona excuses herself for lunch and we have to sit for a while before Dheeraj Kumar arrives. It must have been tough taking over Maayka considering a bunch of senior actors quit overnight we ask him to which he calmly retorts, "We sincerely feel few senior actors quitting the show is a creative loss to both the parties, the actors as well as the production house. The actors were a part of Maayka till the time the channel formalised the arrangement with us. Fortunately, our creative department story, screenplay, writer, dialogue writer moulded the story such that it resulted in the highest TRPs of that particular week when the first episode under our banner was telecast. "To a query whether Zee TV is favouring his production house?" Kumar replies, "No channel favours any production house as TRPs are the essence of success |
