Kisan cum actor Rajesh Kumar is a busy man these days. Apart from taking care of his organic farm land (in Bihar, and more recently in Monor), he also has two acting projects up his sleeve.
“First is an interesting character in a Zee TV show Hamari Bahu Silk. This Devyani Rale and Sudhanshu Tripathi’s Klay Pictures show starring newcomers (Zaan Khan and Chahat Pandey) will go on air very soon.”
“I play a Gujarati C grade film producer called Mr Kapadia. As an actor, I enjoyed it as he has layers.”
“Then there is a finite series of another big channel. You will see me in a different avatar there. I can’t give out more details as I need the green signal from the makers,” he states.
Rajesh also played the role of Tiger Shroff’s father in the just-released Student Of The Year 2.
“Agreed I had very little screen time. I had shot much more, but then edit calls are not my prerogative. I do full justice to whatever I am asked to do. Having said that, this role might open the door for me in films. Working with Dharma Productions was good enough incentive. Plus cinema gives you a much wider arc than TV,” says Rajesh, who has done several well-known shows such as Baa Bahoo Aur Baby, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, Mrs. & Mr. Sharma Allahabadwale, etc.
He has no qualms about playing father to a grown-up hero. “Doesn’t a similar thing happen in TV as well? The most important thing is to act like a dad, which I think I managed to achieve. Plus I got a chance to show off my comic bone as well. So all in all, no regrets.”
“I am in quite a secure place mentally, so nothing really shakes me any more. My biggest purpose is to help the lot of our farmers. I will continue to act as well, as that is my passion. The fact that we have seasonal crops gives me enough time to do other stuff as well,” says Rajesh whose last long-running shows were Badi Door Se Aaye Hai and TV, Biwi aur Main, both on SAB TV.
In closing, Rajesh does not think that Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai will return with season 3. Had season 2 come now, it might have got huge numbers, with the internet finally coming into its own. “We streamed exclusively on Hotstar a while back, when net was still nascent. Despite that, we garnered around four to five million views per episode.”
“Sarabhai always seems to be ahead of its time. Something similar had happened when it first aired on Star,” he ends.