Aparna Kumar opens up on being part of Tu Zakhm Hai

Aparna Kumar opens up on being part of Tu Zakhm Hai

Actress Aparna Kumar, who is seen as Lavanya Treehan in Yash and Mamta Patnaik’s Tu Zakhm Hai, says that she loved shooting for the show. The actress says that the screenplay of the show is very different than what she has done before.

 “I think people might feel that Tu Zakhm Hai as a title is very dark. But if you look at the overall story of the show, it is absolutely apt. It is not a superficial, funny, or comical family drama. Not only the protagonist of the show Viraj, but every character in the show has their history and background, and every character in the story has their own Zakhm. Parineeta’s character has the Zakhm of infidelity, Dhananjay’s character has the Zakhm of being in love with his sister-in-law and subconsciously carries the blame for what happened to his brother. Lavanya’s character has the Zakhm of coming from a mediocre family with a dubious past. Her husband or sister-in-law never let her forget that. Talk about the next generation Jahan, and Shanaya. I think everybody in the show is scared except for Donal. Donal is the only breath of fresh air in the show, I think the title is very apt and I don’t think we could have done better than this,” she says.

Talking about her character, she says, “My character Lavanya Treehan is married to Dhananjay Treehan. I am someone who has never had any class, or has never really seen money. If you have watched the show, you will see that eventhough I am trying to be classy because I have been married in the family for close to 26 years, and I am trying to get that fluency in English, but my way of talking and speaking certain words don’t go well. Basically, Lavanya is a very unclassy person because her background is such, she worked at a massage parlour during her days and it was just a stroke of luck that Dhananjay decided to get married to her. Lavanya is the only one in the show who brings comic relief and will open her mouth to change the foot in sight. She is unaware and I think that is the beauty of Lavanya Treehan that she is unaware of her own stupidities. Whatever she’s doing in the show is for her son. For her to be a Treehan means that she has a lot of money and that she can use that money anyhow. I think she is silly, ditsy, a great mother, a good wife even though she doesn’t get enough attention from Dhananjay. She’s trying hard to make her son understand how a family should be, to give him a better upbringing. If she leaves Dhananjay she will be left with Nothing because the Treehan surname can get her benefits which nothing else in her life can.”

She adds, “Being a little goofy, being a little comic in real life but Lavanya is also kind of a gold digger because of her background of a massage-wali from West Delhi. She keeps quiet when she knows things are wrong or she’s been wronged but she knows which side of her bread to butter. I am not like that in real life. I am a brutally honest person who never shuts up when things are wrong. Like Lavanya, I do open my mouth to change the foot in sight. I don't think I am street-smart. I can be goofy and silly at times but, yes, that is where the similarity ends. But like Lavanya, I also believe in maintaining relationships. No matter how many ups and downs come in the relationship but to quit a sinking ship is not my idea of fun. I don’t subscribe to that. I will try and make any equation in life work and work till I am not totally pushed against the wall and it becomes claustrophobic for me.”

Talking about working with Yash and Mamta Patnaik, she says, “It was quite nice to work with Inspire films and MX Player. To say the least, Anand Sir and Yash Sir did a very good job. It was quite a large chunk of a cake that they had bitten off because of the lavishness of the show, the magnitude they wanted to shoot at was quite big and I think they did quite a great job of shooting it. The show is shot in Noida. They did take the pains of going to Noida and setting up everyone in a hotel, and then we shot for three months. I loved the script, when I read the screenplay, be it the 7th or the 14th one, I was like what would happen next because I think Viraj’s character is one to die for. Every character, in fact, in the show is so well edged and it is not overlapping with anybody else’s. They have their own start and their own graph, their own ending which I think is really remarkable about the show and Yash sir would come to Delhi, he would be coming to sets, we would be talking to him. Anand Sir from MX player, and he would be there as well, so it was nice. Arshiya Pattnaik was very close to the show too and she was the one who took us through our characters, how it should be, the perspective of MX Player and Inspire films’ Mamta Ma’am’s perception of each character. We collectively worked on our characters. When I signed the show, I was not told that Lavanya would be a comic character. I came to know that Lavanya has to have a little comic bend when we started shooting, which was a genre I had never explored before. This was my first time. Yash sir was always there whenever we would meet him, he would always be like, ‘I saw this on the edit, this is looking good, this is not looking good’. I think Mamta Ma’am wrote it so well because I believe it was her concept. I think it was a great experience.”