Tu Tu Main Main Between Ekta Kapoor and Vinta Nanda
Faheem Ruhani
Vinta Nanda (left ) and Ekta Kapoor
What difference do you find between each other's women characters?
E: Her women characters are more rebellious and vainer in thought.
V: Ektaa reaches out to bigger numbers and has a strategy when she creates women characters. I think she is offensive to my audience and I am offensive to hers.
Would you agree that male characters in soaps lack substance?
E: My protagonist being a woman, the male characters will be important but the story will be from the point of view of women.
V: I like to explore the sexuality of women, her need beyond her man. So the men always become very important because there is something left to desire even after you have got complete fulfillment from one man.
Vinta has shown urban women, who smoke and drink, while Ektaa shows her women in the sati-savitri mould.
E: Even today, I can't drink in front of my parents. I am not condemning anybody who can. It is two different lives. You can fight these pressures or live with them.
V: We are different people. She is probably brought up in a family where these things are looked at with respect, whereas I was independent quite early. I crave her life and maybe she craves my independence
E: (Aloud) Sure, I do!
Ektaa, you party hard but when it comes to your soaps, you portray holier-than-thou women. Vinta, what do you think of this?
V: Whatever anybody may say, Ektaa and I are doing business. However aggressive she wants to be with her conviction that this is what sells, it's her right and she has proven that it sells and vice-versa. If she were to make a 'Tara', she would make it as successfully, as if I were to make a saas-bahu.
E: I may not identify with everything that I portray in my characters but I do identify with 75 percent of it; if I was living that life, that would be my thinking.
Vinta's personal life came in the way of work — her company had split because of that. Ektaa never allowed this to happen. How does the personal and interpersonal weave?
E: (Grins) I don't have a personal life. Can you imagine? I find my friends so involved with their personal lives and it's awesome. I am so different and far removed. I was emotionally involved for two years at one point and, looking back I think, "What a mess!" I tell my friends not to ever fall in love.
V: I am an adventurer. I fall in love as easily as I drink water. I don't try to not fall in love!
What is flip side of being Ektaa Kapoor and Vinta Nanda?
E: (Very long pause) Too many expectations and too much unnecessary flak.
V: I am a hippie in my heart and soul. I live by the poetry and music of my generation and that's a side of mine I have yet to display in my work. I am hoping to do that one day.
Do you go through bouts of insecurity?
E: On the TRP days, I get ulcers in my mouth. I become a nervous wreck.
V: At every single screening of 'White Noise'. I would be sitting outside like a wreck and running away before the show ends, so that I can see the faces of the people who have seen the film.
How comfortable would you be portraying same sex relationships in your soaps?
E: I wouldn't be comfortable. See, I showed a lot of homosexuality in 'Kya Kool Hai Hum' but that's in a film. When something comes into your drawing room, you are sitting with your father. I can't even show a kiss. And you are talking about same sex relationships?
V: Soap audiences wouldn't accept it but I'm exploring it in a film script.
Being two dynamic women at the forefront, did you have to fight your way through male dominance?
E: (Laughs) When I was 18, I had gone to the Zee office in shorts. Someone told me, "How am I going to take you seriously if you come in shorts?" Sometimes people said, "At your age, you are making enough money. Why do you want more money than this for your show?" And I was like it's about my company, it's not my age. Thereafter, I used to take my dad whenever I wanted to be taken seriously.
V: It was never visible to me. It was my need, driving me for my survival. People may say is it hard but I was just waking up, going to work and fighting the battle and getting my job done so that I could move onto the next day.
Do you indulge your feminine side?
E: I never splurge on make-up but I love buying perfumes. The most fun thing to do is sitting and bitching with your friends.
V: I don't wear make up but I love being a woman. 'Tara' was the portrayal of my real life. I live off my girlfriends; it's therapeutic.
Ektaa, aren't you obsessively ritualistic?
E: I am extremely spiritual more than ritualistic. My walking to Siddhivinayak is a fabulous exercise and a way of keeping certain disciplines in life. I have prioritised that on Tuesdays, God comes first. I don't do havans and pujas for convenience. My real beliefs are more than what people see on the surface.
Where does religion figure in your scheme of things, Vinta?
V: I am God-fearing but private about my faith. I pray a lot but display of it disturbs me. Simplicity in religion is what I believe in.
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