Objection overruled
'Naughty boy' Aman Varma plays a lawyer in Jassi
Sulakshana Gupta
Mumbai, May 16: HE coldly refers to it as ''the episode''. Two months after confessing that he was a ''naughty boy'' to a hidden camera, Aman Verma dares to face it again. This time, he's a public prosecutor on the uber-successful Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin.
Cocky, snide and brusque—that's Thakraal, his on-screen persona for the coming weeks. ''My character's won 299 cases in his career, losing one only because the client died on the way to court,'' he laughs. Determined that Jessica Bedi should be jailed for Jassi's murder, he steps into Mallika's side of the ring. ''In a daily soap, you never know how long a character will persist. But for now he's integral to the plot,'' he says.
Verma says he had wanted to be a lawyer in his youth. ''I think that my command over the English language is fantastic. I wasn't able to pursue it though,'' he says. He delivers his pet dialogue with great flourish: "Chashmadeet gawaahon se sabit hota hai ki isse jail jaana chaahiye.''
Two days into shooting, Verma's thrilled to be associated with the series. ''I had wanted to be a part of it when Jassi was first launched. It's finally happened now,'' he adds.
''Tarun Katial (Sony's programming head) was among the few people who stood by me, and he's doing it again,'' he says. The actor has often expressed disappointment that the television industry abandoned him after the India TV expose. On the sets of Jassi, co-stars pussyfoot around the casting couch scandal, but Verma insists that no one really cares anymore. ''It's over and done with,'' he shrugs, reluctant to discuss it further.
On the film front, he's bagged several new projects—Kachchi Sadak and Ravi Chopra's Babul among others. He regrets having neglected cinema for the past eight years, but is ready for it now.
