Rumour has it.. Article

Rumour has it...

Jaskiran Kapoor

Posted: Apr 05, 2009 at 0354 hrs IST

On-off screen chemistry, hottest jodis, juicy snippets - the things telly town does to keep your favourite characters alive

It was not meant to read like this. It was supposed to talk about the telly star couples, how we've got a whole new breed of contemporary Heer-Ranjhas, the new-age Sassi-Punno and Romeo-Juliet. How the television's filling our fantasy-starved lives with endless love stories, their even more endless twists and tales, all salvaged and survived together by the leading Ram-Sita-esque pair. So, we have our Mihir-Tulsi, Saloni-Nahar, Ranbeer-Rano, Saagar-Divya etc, etc, but this is where the story changes its track. This is where you get your news flash, a daily dose of gossip snippet, and an hourly supply of e-mail - all conspiring to keep these couples alive, on screen and off screen. Even if that means resorting to invading privacy, hyping their love lives, their so-called chemistry and occasional activity on the sets. It takes a whole PR and marketing team with a pretty over-active imagination to keep your characters alive and kicking, episode after episode, season after season.

"No story works alone at the script level, you need to conjure up something or the other to make it run and tank up the TRPs," insiders at Star and Zee agree that there is a play-up on the characters to keep the audiences glued 24x7. "We agree that sometimes, it can really cross the boundary and do damage like in the case of Saloni who was rumoured to have a real-life affair with Nahar and she didn't...It actually disrupted her relationship with someone," they add. "They linked me up with a co-actor by printing our individual interviews together...it was not true, but I'll have to agree that the publicity was good for the show," tells actor Manav Vij. "We are into the business of entertainment, into selling dreams, and we all flock to see it thinking it's our story, our pair up there. I have friends in the fraternity who've been victims of scandals and controversies, but then, the show must go on," shares actors Gaurav Khanna. Parmeet Sethi sets the record straight and calls this TVisation - "Three-four years back, it was all about Bollywood, but then, we ran out of celebrities. How much can you churn out from 25 stars? You do get bored of talking about the same people, so in stepped television and its slick PR teams who filled the media with gossip snippets, juicy news, on set activity et al. Now, TV actors, who are ten times more in number as compare to bollywood stars are being talked about, are known faces and a regular housewife's star. With more channels and publications, there's more gossip on the mill, it's 24x7 and thus a win-win situation for the star, the channel, and the audience."

The constant overlap between the real and reel keeps the audience glued and attentive. "They love it when their favourite couple is together in real life too," tell the PROs. Take the rumours of Shweta Tiwari and Cezanne Khan, Aamna Sharif and Rajeev Khandelwal, Aditya Narayan and Mauli, Aneek's link-up with Sumedha and tiff with Amanat Ali, Sharad and Divyanka's talked about chemistry....the hype pays. "Character building is the key to story-telling; we aim to create endearment towards the character to the point of audience empathizing, or in parallel, living that character," says Vivek Bahl, Senior Creative Director, Star Plus adding how, after successfully creating characters like Mihir-Tulsi, Om-Parvati, Juhi-Sumeet, Sujal-Kashish, Sadhna-Alekh, Ragini-Ranveer, Rani-Yudhisthir, Prithwiraj-Sanyukta, they're now working on Shaurya Aur Suhani. "The charisma, emotions and the warmth between the two leads is sure to leave the viewers asking for more," he adds.

Meanwhile, as we scroll down, we counter a deluge of news flash in out inbox: Rubina Dalaik of Choti Bahu has gone the Kareena way. Rumour has it that producers of the show complained about the actor's disproportionate figure. Hurt by this remark, Rubina's taken upon the task of being a size zero. She is, but now dieting has become a habit, and the starved girl has fainted few times on the sets! We also hear that Rubina's favoured on the sets because of juicy Himachal apples she gets by the dozen for everyone on the sets, especially a special case for the male lead of the show, Avinash?seems like something's brewing here!

Cut to Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat, and the entire crew had a roller coaster ride in a special horse riding sequence. The three actors, Raja Yudhishtir (Kapil Nirmal), Rudra (Amit Dua) and Nandini (Ira Soni) had to ride horses, but after director Pawan Kumar's narrow escape, everyone on the set prayed and anxiously looked forward to complete the shoot. In another sequence, Rudra aka Amit Dua of Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat was chased by a bull, fell twice and got got injured. Also, we hear, in order to make the bull chase him, he actually tried to provoke the beast and got a chase of his life!

In Bidaai's Navratra track, a special dhoti with a proper belt and buttoned fly was stitched for Ranvir (Kinshuk) as this city boy couldn't get used to the desi version! Meanwhile, Parul and Kinshuk are very excited about their recent track in the show. Both are sharing the maximum time of screen and are looking forward to do their lovey-dovey scenes in the show. While Kinshuk is comfortable kissing and hugging, Parul's shy and we hear practices hundreds of times before coming close to Kinshuk!

Please do check out our hottest jodis: Sharad Malhotra and Divyanaka Tripathi aka Saagar and Vidya of Banoo Main Teri Dulhan. "We are the best couple on television. Divyanka is very sweet but off-screen we quarrel a lot," defends Sharad. Then, it's Yuvraj Malhotra-Twinkle Bajpai aka Karan-Laksmi of Ghar Ki Lakshmi Betiyaan - There's been a buzz for sometime that this on screen pair is a couple in real life too. Move on to Manish Naggdev - Snehal Sahai aka Chinu-Shalo of Banno Main Teri Dulhan. "No, we are not seeing each other. I am quite aware it's been rumoured so but I think when the on screen chemistry works, they are bound to come," clears Manish....Participant Salman is drawing a lot of eyeballs on Dance India Dance, but for the wrong reasons. He's been rushed to the nearest hospital for the third consecutive week. Last week he burned a part of his face while performing his dance routine which involved fire. This week, the judges and Mahaguru Mithun Chakraborty were shocked to see a trail of blood on the stage....Ravi Dubey who plays Ranbir on Zee TV's Ranbir-Rano had to dress in the leather jumpsuit made famous by Elvis Presley for a dance sequence. The long shooting hours and retakes were the last thing Ravi wanted as he started sweating profusely and the outfit gave him rashes all over. Matters didn't improve even after Ravi changed into his normal clothes and he ended up needing medical help to avoid further skin problems! Seems like we'll break into a rash soon!