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| A. L. Chougule Despite her film outings, Shalini Kapoor prefers television as it offers better opportunities and varied roles "Television offers immense opportunities and varied roles. In the last couple of years the medium has grown by leaps and bounds and television actors are not short on popularity either," says Shalini. She feels that currently the small screen is more kind to female actors as compared to their male counterparts. "With women playing protagonists and antagonists, there is lot of variety for female actors. Even in key character roles female actors are way ahead of men," she laughs, adding, "Often my male co-actors complain that with women dominating television entertainment they have nothing much to do." No wonder Shalini is happy that she bid goodbye to films. "Television is more preferable because the medium is far more organised than films. Besides the people are clean and better," says Shalini. She did her first television show when she had just finished her school. "Andaaz was my first serial which I joined when it was about to end and did about the last 60 episodes or so. Daastan, Saathiya, Vishnu Puran and Yeh Nazdikiyaan were some of the other serials I did before I started doing films," she goes down memory lane. In fact, Shalini feels that her television career suffered because of films. "After doing four Hindi films with Mithun Chakraborty, Aditya Panscholi and Sunil Shetty, I started doing Gujarati films which required me to stay away from Mumbai for long stretches of time. I did Gujarati films because the money was good but I missed out on good opportunities on television," she regrets. Reviving a half-done career is always a difficult job. It requires starting all over again in smaller shows on fringe channels and Shalini did the same for a while before she bounced back in bigger and better roles about a year ago. She was playing a key character role in Solhah Singaar on SaharaOne and her track was going very well. "It was a negative role but the character was very important and prominent," she says. But she opted out of Solhah Singaar when she was offered to play a key character in Ardhangini which is produced by the same production house that is making Solhah Singaar. "I had to make a choice between Ardhangini and Solhaah Singaar because it was not possible to do both simultaneously. And I chose to do Ardhangini because it was meant for Zee," she reasons. |
She knows that doing a show for a popular channel is more important for the growth of her career. The other reason for preferring Ardhangini over Solhah Singaar is that the former is a bigger show which is inspired by Shah Rukh Khan's film Devdas. "Besides, the role is also very good. I am playing a strong woman in the show that is part of the boy's family. Moon Moon is like the vintage Farida Jalal, naughty, chulbuli but strong and powerful who takes the right decision for the family. More than the mother, she is the one who controls Priyam," she elaborates.
The show is set in a Bengali family and Shalini says Bengali families are controlled by women. Ask her why and she says she wonders why women rule in Bengali families. "I hail from Kolkata and I have seen that Bengali men are docile and play second fiddle to women who rule and take all the important decisions in the family," she laughs. Apart from Ardhangini which keeps her busy for 20 days in a month, Shalini is also doing the new show on STAR Plus, Jai Maa Durga which has her playing the Goddess Durga. "It's not a pure mythological show but a blend of reality and mythology," says Shalini. In her opinion playing a mythological character is far more difficult than a fictional or real character because God is immortal. "It is not easy to play an immortal character because you have nothing to refer to or get inspired from," she winds up.
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