A channel spokesperson calls a successful TV soap a wonderful prison. It's hardly off the mark when you see an actor go up on stage dressed in his rural character's garb, and thank God and his parents in a boorish tongue. Did the character that audiences love just kill the actor, and the person, asks Janaki Viswanathan

It's pouring sheets in a tree-fringed lane that skirts Goregaon's Film City that transforms magically into a street somewhere in Agra. A young woman with a newborn in her arms, rushes out of a taxi (do they have black-and-yellow cabs in Agra?) followed by a frantic father. "Cut!" calls the director. An army of umbrellas pop open to shelter the cast as they rush for cover.

At home, being herself
Actress Meghna Malik who plays the scheming matriarch Ammaji in hit TV
soap Naa Aana Iss Des Laado, is all smiles on a rain-drenched Thursday
morning outside her home in Madh Island. Pic/Hashim Badani

Alok Nath, one of the Hindi film and television industry's most senior stars takes a sip of his tea, laughing at a joke that Ragini, his on-screen daughter played by Parul Chauhan has just cracked. "Sometimes, I feel these two talk like Ragini and Babuji even when the camera is not rolling," whispers Rajan Shahi, producer of Sapna Baabul ka Bidaai. The show, now three years old, is one of the top TRP baggers on Star Plus. Just then the make-up man arrives looking around for "Ragini ma'am". Her make-up needs to be touched up. And we get what Shahi means.

What's true, what's not?
Two weeks ago, Ragini got up on stage at the glitzy Star Parivaar Awards,u00a0maneuvering the pleats of her heavily embellished sari, mangalsutra and sindoor in place, to receive her awards for Favourite Bahu and Favourite Bhabhi. Chauhan is actually just 22, single, and lives alone in Mumbai like several other young, independent women. She doesn't share half the tragedy of her on-screen counterpart.

But for Bidaai fans, the lines between fiction and reality, Ragini and Parul, have blurred. "When I walk into a mall wearing jeans and a tee, people stop when they recognise me. Sometimes they say, 'Aap aise kapde pehenti hain (Are these the clothes you wear?)'" laughs Chauhan. An explanation is always in order. "I tell them, 'Auntyji, Ragini is married. Parul isn't. So I can dress this way, can't I?'"u00a0

Chauhan comes from Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh, a small town she left three years ago. "When I landed in Mumbai, I realised yahaan bholaapan nahin chalta. I had to change. And as the episodes built up, Ragini changed too; she became more confident," Chauhan recalls about her character, the dark-skinned sister on the show.

Not dress-as-you-like
Except for her stint on dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhlaa Jaa, Chauhan makes most public appearances dressed as her screen-self. She and co-star Sara Khan (who plays her fair and beautiful sister on the soap), even played Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain with Shah Rukh Khan, as Ragini and Sadhana. Producer Shahi says it's all part of a planned strategy. "In the first year after the show was launched, I had to make sure the characters got ingrained in the viewers' minds. It's crucial that the actors don't do anything that isn't 'in character'," he says.

Shahi remembers a time when he had to send the two girls back home from an award function. "They were dressed in trendy, modern outfits. I sent them home to change. They returned in traditional Indian attire. We couldn't afford to give the fans a culture shock."u00a0

Awestruck fans at the mall
Meghna Malik gets ready to drive down from her Madh Marve home for another 13-hour shoot. It's day 49. We can't take our eyes off the short, red-tinged hair and easy smile. She is miles away from the teeth-gritting character she plays on TRP-scorcher Naa Aana Iss Des Laado on Colors. "Fans usually laugh when they recognise me," she admits, weaving her Honda City through traffic to Goregaon.u00a0

"I have women and men come up to me and say, 'Aap kaise karti hain (How do you manage to play that part!)'" Somewhere, Malik believes, her character, Ammaji is also a secret hero for many women who would love to take charge of their families like she does.

Character claustrophobia
Iconic characters turning into household names is nothing new. It kickstarted with BR Chopra's Mahabharat and Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana way back in 1987-88. Actor Arun Govil had people stopping to touch his feet because he played Ram.

But ever since Colors, a relatively young Hindi fiction channel brought in the raw, men-and-women-of-the-soil shows, generously spiked with female foeticide and marital abuse, character worship has taken on a new dimension. "It's the one big difference between film and television," says Ashvini Yardi, programming head, Colors. In film, she elaborates, except for maybe a Raj, Simran or a Munnabhai, actors are the bigger stars. "On television, the character is everything. Viewers believe they are real."

Yardi agrees that rural shows mean the actors undergo a physical transformation to get into character. "Earlier, soaps featuring middle-class housewives, used to all look the same. At Colors, none of our characters look urbane." And that helps as a differentiating factor. It was a trend that quickly inspired similar shows on rival channels.

Which is probably why it's harder to tell the actor from the character. When you see Gehena, Sumitra and Anandi of Balika Vadhu instead of Neha Marda, Smita Bansal and Avika Gor who play these characters, endorsing a pregnancy test kit, your senses are being tricked. When Akshara, the young daughter-in-law of the Singhania household performed on stage for an award show with husband Naitik, actors Hina Khan and Karan Mehra took a backseat.u00a0u00a0

Meghna Malik's vamp act extended to Kitchen Champion, a cookery contest in which Ammaji was allowed to take part, not Malik. Such appearances don't bother the actress. She thinks of them as mere promotion.

"Ammaji has many fans out there but how many of them know my name? The character has an instant connect," she says.

Yardi seconds Malik. "It's a channel requirement, and while it's not a hard-and-fast rule, an actor is expected to maintain the character. We tell our artistes to stick to their character's image. An on-screen vamp for example, can endorse probably anything, but a protagonist ought to model for products that go with her on-screen persona," she explains.

Myself or screen self?
Actors need to acquire permission before making any public appearance, even a ribbon-cutting. "Then we figure out what kind of event it is, and whether the artiste is going as himself or the character," says Shahi.u00a0

Casting director for Shakuntalam Telefilms (Naa Aana Iss Des Laado, Devi), Dimpy Sinha, says showing off your character while keeping the real person under wraps is just a promotion tactic. "It's hard to spot an actor in the crowd. It's easier for viewers to recognise him if he's in the character's garb," she says. Popular enough to be adored as a fictional character, but tied down by script constraints, it's a boon and a curse to be a television star.u00a0

Award shows too, celebrate characters more than performers. Star Plus' Star Parivaar Awards and Zee TV's Rishtey Awards, hand out accolades to the Favourite Bahu, Beti, Bhabhi, Devar, Jethani, Saas, Maa, Naya Sadasya, and so on. Actors dress up as their on-screen personas and talk straight out of the screenplay while taking home their trophies.

Vivek Bahl, programming head for Star Plus says, "It helps build the brand and characters. Unlike other media, in television, the character is always primary. Popularity for most performers is based on their characters, unlike films where people know SRK as SRK. How many viewers can easily recollect the names behind Jassi, Tulsi, Sadhana or Pratigya?" he argues.u00a0

On the flipside, this takes away credit from those to whom it is due: the writers, who are the creators of role-models. Purnendu Shekhar, the brain behind Balika Vadhu, says writers are starved for recognition.

"It is a happy moment for a writer when his creation wins an award. The award ought to go to the writer. The actor isn't winning it for his/her performance, but simply for what he is on the show, which is thanks to the writer," he reasons.u00a0

Meghna Malik seconds that. "I find the concept of awarding a character quite weird, and silly. It's an award that ought to go jointly to the actor, writer, producer and director. No one person can take full credit for the success of a character."u00a0

Actor Satyajeet Sharma who plays the hot-headed Basant in Balika Vadhu is in disagreement. A character shouldn't step out of the confines of the set, he says. "To each his own, but I believe a character is sacred, and to come out in public dressed as Basant would, for me, break the illusion."

But TV reporter-turned-actress Sonali Verma who was recently voted Favourite Maa for her role as Gayatri in Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlaata Hai, thinks such awards are self-explanatory. "These are awards for the Star family, they celebrate relationships. They are meant to be this way," she says.

The everyday making of the yogya bahu

A) June 22, 9.15 am

Parul Chauhan is on the phone as she leaves her apartment in Lokhandwala,
Kandivali, for a morning shoot at Film City

b) 10.02 am

Parul likes doing her own make-up, and tranforms into Ragini in under
half-an-hour. Pics/ Satyajit Desai

c) 10.35 amu00a0

Now that co-star Sara Khan is dead (on the show), Parul gets a make-up
van to herself. The rain is a bit of a spoiler today

d) 10.50 am

An on-set help assists Parul with the pallu

e) 11.05 am

The scene didn't need Parul to deliver a line, but she prefers checking the
screenplay to figure her cues

f) 11.20 amu00a0

In a precursor to a scene where Ragini discovers that sister Sadhana is
dead in a bomb blast, she is chased by a frantic Babuji

g) 11.42 amu00a0

Fresh from having chased Parul in pouring rain, Alok Nath aka Babuji takes
a tea break with her and a crew member

Tulsi still going strong
True, it was Tulsi, Parvati, Komolika, and Prerna who set the stage on fire at the recent Awards, not Smriti Iraani, Saakshi Tanwar, Urvashi Dholakia and Shweta Tiwari. "The TRPs of the Awards are a clear indicator that these characters are still popular," says a proud Irani. She insists she was never suffocated by Tulsi's stardom.

"Success can never suffocate you, and I co-created her after all. She can't take over me." Neither does she feel she lost her sense of self. "I created an identity for myself with my other work," she says, referring to her social work and entry into politics.u00a0

But truth be told, Irani was never able to take on another role, with as much impact. Neither of her productions, Thodi Si Zameen Thoda Sa Aasmaan, Virrudh, Mere Apne or Maniben.Com tasted the success Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi did. She continues to remain the idealistic, forgiving daughter-in-law despite the fact that the show ended a couple of years ago.

Still liking '(Komo) lika'
It's pretty much the same for Urvashi Dholakia, the vamp everyone loved to hate in Kasauti Zindagi Kay. "I have no idea what it was about Komolika that everyone liked. Maybe the fact that she was one of the first glamorous vamps," she says. While Dholakia explored her funny bone in Comedy Circus and bared all on reality show Sach Ka Saamna, she hasn't recaptured viewer attention like she did with her enormous tikka and swaying walk in the Star Plus soap that folded up in 2008.u00a0u00a0

Zee TV's fiction head Sukesh Motwani calls a successful television soap "a wonderful prison." According to him, the story is the hero. "Till the time a popular show plays out on television, the actor has to be the character, on set and off it. Laali of Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo, will be Laali for the viewers, not Ratan Rajput."u00a0

And this is something Rajput doesn't mind. "Yes, sometimes I feel the need to look deeper within to find Ratan because I'm with my character Laali all day and night," she admits. But the 20-something holds no grudge. She owes her popularity to the helpless village girl. And she knows she'll have to let go of the character once the show ends. If she's lucky, she'll slip into the skin of another character just as easily. If not, too bad. As Vivek Bahl puts it: "The more popular a show and character, the tougher it becomes for an actor to follow up the act."u00a0

Can explore, can experiment
But some senior actors have managed to do just that. Whether it's Surekha Sikhri, who went from playing single mom in Banegi Apni Baat to the stern Dadisa of Balika Vadhu, or Jayati Bhatia, who turned from protagonist in Kanyadaan to bumbling villain in Sabki Laadli Bebo, they make the transition look easy.u00a0

"I guess it's more difficult when you are playing the lead in a show, to experiment with other roles," says Sharma. Bhatia disagrees: "If you open up your mind to different roles consciously, you can do it." The stage actress makes it a point to switch genres often. "If I've played a villainous cameo in Baat Hamaari Pakki Hai, I follow it up with a humorous vamp act in Sabki Laadli Bebo. It's to avoid monotony."u00a0

Ultimately on television, it's the character that rules. And to quote a candid Bhatia, "Several of the new faces on television don't show any real talent anyway, so it's better if they are known as the characters they play."

The transformation gallery

u00a0u00a0u00a0
TV journalist-turned-actress Sonali Verma plays Gayatri, the conservative
mother-in-law in Star Plus' Yeh Rishta Kya Kehelaata Hai

u00a0u00a0u00a0
Disha Vakhani is the dramatically loud Daya Bhabhi in laugh riot Taarak
Mehta ka Ooltah Chashma on Sab TV

u00a0u00a0
Hina Khan plays Akshara, a young bahu, homely and ever willing to compromise
in Star Plus soap Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlaata Hai

u00a0u00a0
Ratan Rajput plays the lead in Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya hi Kijo, a rural,
soap that's currently one of the top TRP-grabbers on Zee TV.

Invisible icons

The trapped brigade

Saakshi Tanwar
Better known as: Parvati of Kahani Ghar Ghar ki
She was the ultimate embodiment of Indian tradition, values and affection, even when she went over to the dark side and had a plastic surgery. When Kahani wrapped up in 2008, and Tanwar took on a not-so-nice role in current soap Balika Vadhu, she received serious flak. She has stuck on but still, one can't help but view her as the had-it-all bahu.

Shweta Tiwariu00a0
Better known as: Prerna of Kasauti Zindagi Kay
For seven years, she struggled with broken marriages, multiple widowhood, childlessness. Sadly, once Kasauti wrapped up, Tiwari couldn't really make the same impact as she has as Prerna, whether it was in dance reality show Nach Baliye or television drama Jaane Kya Baat Hui.

Cezanne Khan
Better known as: Anurag of Kasauti Zindagi Kay
For the most part, he was confused with the heroine and the vamp of the soap. Then he doubted the parenthood of his daughter and kept trying to win back his love. Post Kasauti, Khan tried his hand at grey in Ek Ladki Anjaani Si and then a comic role in Seeta Aur Geeta. Both bombed.u00a0u00a0

Roopa Ganguly
Better known as: Draupadi in Mahabharatau00a0
Ganguly's brilliant performance brought in much fandom while never really letting her experiment. It was years before she was accepted (grudgingly) in Love Story, then as a commercial weepy mum in Kasturi, and finally in the mother-of-all-revelations episode in Sach ka Saamna. It was a letdown of sorts for the morally supreme Draupadi.

It's just as bad in the West

F.R.I.E.N.D.S
Except maybe for Jennifer Aniston who broke out of the Rachel mode, with movies like The Good Girl and The Break-Up, the rest of the cast of America's most loved sitcom couldn't get out of character. David Schwimmer who plays Ross, tried his hand at Six Days and Seven Nights, and ended up as a Ross'ish caricature. Likewise for Matthew Perry who reeked of Chandler in Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards and The Whole Ten Yards, while Lisa Kudrow continued Phoebe's flaky eccentric self in Romy & Michele's High School Reunion. And it was only amusing to watch Matt Le Blanc play an actor and Lucy Liu's boyfriend in the Charlie's Angels movies.

The Bold & The Beautiful
Twenty-three years and Ridge and Brooke still have on-going conflicts with their marriage, get married to random people, nurture legitimate and illegitimate children, and are just as promiscuous. Ronn Moss and Kathleen Kelly who play the star-crossed protagonists in America's still-watched magnum opus, have had little time for other work. While Kelly was only seen in The Young and The Restless, Moss recently finished second in reality show Dancing With The Stars.

Lost
It didn't run for as long as F.R.I.E.N.D.S and The Bold and The Beautiful, but we get the feeling that the ensemble cast of Lost, at least the main characters, are going to have a tough time shaking off their on-screen personas.

Matthew Fox did work on movies while the series was on but the image of the tormented doctor-hero-leader will remain, we are afraid. Evangeline Lilly's fugitive act didn't ruin much for her role in The Hurt Locker, and anyway Kate (her runaway character in Lost), doesn't really have much dimension, so she will be able to slip out. But Josh Holloway who played the smooth talking con man Sawyer, is going to have the toughest time. It's a typical character all right but he may just get buried under similar roles.