Double roles add more drama to our telly shows!

Double roles are quite common in our Bollywood movies. Adding a blend of double fun a double role a movie has always been a great formula for making the film a hit in our Bolly town. Big actors like Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hema Malini, Sridevi, etc. have gathered lots of appreciation and success for their respective movies on box office which had them in a double role.

Following their path, even our Telly town seems to be very much inspired by this double role trend which was seeded by our B-Towners. Double roles are in a trend for our Tellywood but does it really follows the path of our Bollywood? To some extent, the answer is No!  

In most of the Bollywood movies, double roles have given a boost to the comedy aspect of the movie but what is the role of a double role' when it comes to Indian television? Let's try to find out more on the same.

As mentioned earlier, most of the times double roles have been introduced to add humor to movies but when it comes to shows on Indian television double roles are most of the times shown to be negative.  Why is that so? The answer to this question could be the fact that a negative character adds high voltage drama and is scope for lot of twist and turns which is very much needed in Indian television shows. If the negative characters are look-alike to the positive characters then it works as adding fuel to the fire and enhances the story line, creatively.

Recently, we have seen actors of telly town donning a double role in their respective shows like, Rati Pandey (Zara and Indira) in Hitler Didi, Tina Dutta (Ichcha and Meethi) in Uttaran, Adaa Khan (Amrit and Rajjo) in Amrit Manthan, Aditya Redij (Prithvi and Ishwar) in Junoon - Aisi Nafrat, toh Kaisa Ishq, Mohit Raina (Mahadev and Jalandhar) in Devon Ke Dev. Mahadev, Ritu Raj Singh (Inder and Tauji) in Hitler Didi, Gaurav Gera (Param and Pammi) in Mrs. Pammi Payarelal, Avika Gor (Roli and Jhumki) in Sasural Simar Ka and many more.

The TRP chart shows that the double role funda has certainly worked well for some of the shows but for some it has remained constant. Watching their favorite actors in a double role is certainly a treat for the viewers but the popularity meter shows that the negative double role story tracks are being liked by the viewers more over the comic ones. Whether it's the negative character played by Rati in Hitler Didi or Aditya in Junoon, the fans have surely liked the tracks more as compared to when an actor has played a double role for a comic story track.

Double roles means double effort for the actors too. Aditya Redij, who recently played Prithvi and Ishwar in Junoon, says, "A lot of hard work and thinking is required and we did a lot of home even before we started shooting for this double role sequence. It has been a wonderful experience playing a double role."

Talking about the difficulties while switching between the two characters, Aditya adverts, "The difficult part about playing a double role is that when you have to forget one character and get yourself evolved in the other one. While enacting Ishwar, I have to completely forget about Prithvi and his body language and get myself evolved in the character of Ishwar. I do not take much time in switching between my characters except for the hair styling part."

Yes, getting yourself evolved from one character to the other is not only the matter of dressing sense. As we have seen in the case of Hitler Didi, there are two different kinds of characters which are being played by Rati in which one is positive while the other one is negative. Similarly, the double role by Adaa in Amrit Manthan is also different from one another. At one time, she has played her original character of Amrit, while she also portrayed the character of Rajjo who is a typical Haryanvi girl with a different accent and of course a different dressing sense.

According to an opinion poll done on India Forums, we found that though the audiences do like their favorite actors in both type of roles but they prefer the positive ones over the negative ones being played by them. Fans of Rati Pandey opine that they would have liked the character of Zara as well if it wouldn't have taken a negative turn.   

The same response we get to see in an opinion poll conducted for Aditya Redij as Prithvi or Ishwar. The fans opine that they love the character of Prithvi the most as compared to Ishwar.

So what would have happened if our telly characters would have been playing a positive character or a character with a comic sense of humor in a double role? The possibility is that even though the viewers would have enjoyed watching them the drama that these negatives ones add to the show making the show interesting would have been faded off. 

As for the fans we guess as long as they get to see their favorite actors in two different avatars it doesn't matter to them as they get to see more of them and enjoy the show!

 

Anwesha Kamal