Rohitashv Gour feels humbled by the fact that hit &TV show, Bhabhiiji Ghar Par Hai, has crossed over 800 episodes. “The love and support of the audience encourages us to give even better output.”
What does he feel about his character? “In real life, I am complexly contrasting to what Tiwariji is, but yes, I add a lot of what I have observed about others, especially men, coveting someone else’s wives.”
On what makes the show such a big hit, he says, “I credit the entire team of writers and director (Manoj Santoshi, Shashank Bali). We actors also improvise from our end, like my angry mannerism, which veteran film actor Utpal Duttji would do. I also have great fun working with all my co-stars (Ashif Sheikh, Shubhangi Atre and Saumya Tandon).”
Here, he laments the current state of general TV, including comedy. “Gone are the days when you had shows like Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. Today, most comic shows have unnecessary vulgarity. Sadly, even the writing leaves much to be desired.”
Going on, he says, “The general problem is that we are not really able to make rooted shows like Bhabhiji, for the creative guys/girls in most channels themselves are mostly westernized. We all know of the incident when a writer submitted a story based on Premchand; the channel person wanted the CV of Premchand.”
“Today, lots of actors are equally to be blamed, they have no control over the Hindi language. If you give them a script which requires really playing around with the Lingua Franca of the nation, they will be completely at sea.”
“TV content per se is also afflicted by the TRP syndrome, forcing you to change stories as per weekly rating fluctuations. Luckily, we have the liberty to do our thing. No wonder, we are able to work at our pace and bring out good stories week after week. We even go home at 9 pm.”
Here, he does admit that when Shilpa Shinde quit the show in 2016, it really came under pressure. “The quitting of the Bhabhiji could have meant curtains, but we all worked very hard and salvaged the situation.”
While Rohitashv would love to do different stuff, “Guess my shows do well, so why jump ship?” His last show, Lapatanj, also ran for a long while. Rohitashv has now been doing TV and films for around 20 odd years, finally finding his calling as Mukandi in this TV adaption of Sharad Joshi’s works.
On what makes an actor stick around, he says, “Lady luck, along with talent. Today, you need a certain amount of buttering skills as well, but all these form part of the essential part of the trade.”