Is Ambar-Dhara ripped off from Jaya B...

By Subhash K Jha

The brave new daily Ambar-Dhara on Sony about the life and tears of conjoined twins seems to have direct echoes in the play Laali-Leela produced by AB Corp Ltd and presented by Jaya Bachchan three years.

But the soap's creative director Siddharth Tiwari is very clear about the show's inspiration. "Me and my creative partner Vikas Seth hadn't even heard of Laali-Leela when we decided to make Ambar-Dhara.

We went to see the play after we wrote the soap. No, we did extensive research on conjoined twins. Studied several cases. Our main source of inspiration were these Canadian twins who've lived together all their lives.

One plays the guitar, the other sings,just like Ambar and Dhara. Also, let me add Siamese twins on screen date back to 1951 when Daisy and Violet Hilton starred in Chained For Life."

So who are the actresses playing Ambar and Dhara and where did they come from?

Siddharth laughs uncomfortably. "We've decided to keep their real identity a secret. As far as we're concerned they're Ambar and Dhara, and that's how we want the audience to see them.

We auditioned a large number of girls without telling them what they've to play. And we decided not to cast identical twins. It would've become very boring for viewers to watch the same face twice over in almost every frane, and also hard to tell them apart."

What if one of the girls playing the conjoined twins decides to walk out of the show?

Laughs Siddharth, "Firstly the two girls chosen to play Ambar and Dhara have been together shooting and just getting to know one another for months. They're like real-life sisters and have very little contact with the world outside their serials. Secondly both the girls are under contract. They can leave at their own risk."