| Text by Alpana Chowdhury |
| Writers, cameramen, actors, everybody connected with the extremely competitive world of television, have to pay a heavy price to rule the idiot box for they often end up as victims of a clockless work pattern, observes Alpana Chowdhury as she chats with some top flag bearers of the small screen |
For 14 months I lived with the coffee machine," laughs Dinesh Raheja. And he's not joking! Part of the team of writers who wrote the screenplay of around 150 initial episodes of Kasamh Se, Raheja got habituated to working after sunset hours till midnight and beyond. "You have no option when you are working on a daily soap that is sensitive to TRP ratings," he explains.
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I used to be very fit earlier but now I'm not as fit as I'd like to be," rues Ram Kapoor, the increasingly popular Mr Walia of Kasamh Se. "When you are playing the lead role of a daily serial, you can't really take care of your health. There have been occasions when I've shot for 30 hours at a stretch. TV engulfs you totally. If we shoot till the wee hours of the morning, there is no question of having breakfast; and our dinnertime is usually around 1 a.m. But when I accepted the role I was prepared for these demanding conditions of work."
Luckily for Ronit Roy, who does two high-profile serials like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kasautii Zindagi Kay his producer Ekta Kapoor, after the initial hiccups, worked his schedule out in such a manner that he is able to lead a more regulated life now. But in 2002, when he first started shooting for the two serials, there was a week when he was on the sets 24/7. Till his body couldn't take it any more and he collapsed. "Pack-up was announced and I went home to sleep - for the first time in seven days!"
Sleepless hours, skipping meals, lack of exercise, a few broken bones…these are just some of the hazards of acquiring overnight fame and popularity. That's probably what telestars, today, will have to resort to doing, if they can't escape the arc lights long enough. Or they will have to plan their nuptials around public holidays like Ronit Roy did. "I got married on December 25, so my wife and I managed a three-day honeymoon as well since there are a few holidays during the Christmas-New Year period."
Sharad Kelkar wasn't half as lucky. Kirti and he had no honeymoon, and most times the cootchie-cooing couple catch up with each other only on the sets of the serials they are working in. Or at the dinner table.
Iqbal Khan took the brave decision to step out of the rat race altogether at a time when he could have gone ahead by leaps and bounds. Having put in gruelling hours of work, almost non-stop, for more than two years, he felt he couldn't take it any more. So he notified Balaji, Ekta Kapoor's production house, that he was calling it quits by December 25, 2006. "I am not leaving Ekta to join another producer," he clarifies. "I am quitting for the moment to get my life back on track. I am only 26 years old but I've begun to look much older, with dark circles and bags under my eyes. I've also developed a chronic stomach problem. Though I've always been a gym freak, working 30, 60 and even 90 hours at a stretch leaves me no time to visit the gym and my physique has gone for a complete toss. Now I want to get my body back in shape so I look slim and trim in my wedding pictures. I know that, workwise, everything is going right for me just now; but there is more to life than just your profession. All around me, I see marriages breaking up, children going haywire because of parental neglect…I don't want that to happen in my life," explains the handsome hunk.
While every profession has its stressful moments-I once worked with an editor who refused a male colleague leave because, "Your wife is delivering a baby, not you"- those facing the camera for daily soaps have more than their share of it as they have fewer options for juggling time. "I was shooting till my wife's water bag burst," recalls Ronit. But consolation lay in being beside her when their baby was born. Similarly, when Ram Kapoor heard his wife had gone into labour, he completed the scene he was shooting before hurrying across to Breach Candy hospital. "I was with her through her delivery and spent the night with her and our baby," he recounts. Next morning he was back at work. Smriti Z Iraani, too rushed from the sets to the labour room, taking just three days off from work before returning to play the matriarch of soaps.
It's tough no doubt. But not too many television actors are complaining. "I multitask because I want to," asserts Smriti, while Ram Kapoor wouldn't like to have it any other way. "I enjoy my work and I would like to continue having my hands full for a few years more," he states. "Ever since I can remember I've dreamt of this career. Why would I want to wake up from a sweet dream?" asks Ronit Roy who is all praise for his producer Ekta Kapoor. "She is not the monster she is made out to be. Balaji and I have an excellent equation and we both know we are there for each other whenever the need arises," he states, very categorically. Rakshanda, these days, has a severe knee pain with little time to follow her doctor's orders but even she isn't cribbing. "I love it when the man on the road remembers what I wore or what I mouthed in a particular scene or when I get fan mail all the way from Burundi in East Africa. Today, if I am running an event management company, it is thanks to being a known face on the small screen. Television definitely gave me the initial credibility required in business."
Scriptwriter Raheja sums it up succinctly. "It's a well-paying job. One can choose between working at a call centre or television. If you are creative, you choose the latter." And never mind if the coffee machine outlives them all.
And of course Article Number 2,
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From The Edge Of The Abyss click on the purple link for full Ronit Roy Past Article from Verve Magazine
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