Raving about Ravan
Delhiite Narendra Jha talks about his role in the newest Zee TV series, "Ravan" |
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EVIL Narendra Jha as Ravan
Call up Narendra Jha and his baritone response at once makes you ask the actor whether the show producers have zeroed in on him to play Ravan only because of his voice. Such a deep voice with a resounding effect is now increasingly getting scarce among actors. The one and only instance that comes to your mind has been that of Big Bachchan's.
Jha responds to the query with an equally booming laugh: "Maybe the producers of the tele-serial thought of me because they needed someone with a good voice, clear diction in Hindi and a bit educated to play Ravan." This post-graduate in history from New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University says he first thought of rejecting the role.
"I was a little reluctant initially because I thought it would be another mythological serial but when I heard the story and the hard work put into it I couldn't say no." Having started this past Saturday at 9 p.m., this one-hour weekly series is written and researched by Chandan Singh. Jha's get-up as Ravan has been done by Varsha Jain. Besides Jha, the serial features actors like Mansi Salve, Diwakar Pundir, Ravee Gupta and Rajendra Gupta among others.
Jha says he has read a lot of books on Ravan including Valmiki's Ramayana as the series aims to show Ravan's journey as a man from mahamanav to mahadanav. "The idea is to see the man as a whole, the journey of his life. What were the wrongs that he actually committed? Except that he kidnapped Sita ji, he had no other major blunder against his name. Looking at his angry sister who had lost her nose, every brother would think of avenging it. Even though he kidnapped Sita ji, he left her in the custody of his wives," explains Jha. Appreciated for his role in serials like
Shanti, and films like
Fun2tosh,
Kacchi Sadak and as Baji Rao in the Telugu film,
Chakrapathi, Jha though got into acting just by chance.
Student of history
"I was a history student, I could have ended up teaching somewhere but one fine day I thought I should become an actor. So my father said I should get a bit of training in acting and that led me to Sri Ram Centre in Delhi before leaving for Mumbai," he states. In Mumbai, he did a couple of advertisement films before roles started coming in.
A bit of a choosy actor, he says he doesn't want to be seen doing anything and everything. "My next film is
Ek Dastak. It is being made by an income tax officer based in Kalyan, Mumbai." The film, he feels, "is a very realistic portrayal of life." While he plays the lead, Vasundhara Das is his co-actor. Also in his kitty is a Hollywood film which he is not ready to talk about yet.
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
Edited by monika.goel - 17 years ago
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