‘With daily soaps we’ve lost stories and characters’

Actor Pallavi Joshi was a prominent face on Indian television with shows such as Aarohan and Talaash to her credit. But, she slowed down on work, until she got back to TV with Peshwa Bajirao in 2017.

The actor feels that Indian TV has undergone a massive change. She explains, “There was magic on television earlier. It was such a new medium and people didn’t know how to look at it. There were some people who treated it like films, and did exactly that kind of shottaking. Some people treated it as theatre, we would go through extensive workshops and rehearsals. We would stage everything. It was fun.”

Soon, everything changed. “With the daily soaps now, we have lost characters and stories. It is just an on-going thing, which can change anytime according to the channel,” she opines.

Her experience of working on the period drama Peshwa Bajirao was, hence, very confusing. “I did not touch daily soaps and Peshwa… was

my first one. I was required only for eight days a month and they would finish all my work. It used to be 10 packed scenes. And even in them, I was just standing and doing nothing. I didn’t know what the hell was happening in that scene. It’s very disconcerting,” says Pallavi, who wasn’t even told when she wasn’t required in the show any longer.

“I want to be involved in the scene and know what my coactors are doing because that has been my school of acting. I am an old-school actor, and don’t like daily soaps much. I took Peshwa... because I thought it was different, it will be a sensible series,” she says, before adding that the makers messed around with history.

“As a Maharashtrian, I knew everything about Peshwa history. When I went to the United States and told them ‘I am not here for a month’, they didn’t call me. My character, Tarabai, just disappeared from the series! And then the series also ended because they had a problem with the channel,” Pallavi signs off.