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EXCLUSIVE: Hum Paanch's Rakhi Vijan on her dad objecting to acting, playing Sweety & the stardom they received
We EXCLUSIVELY spoke to Rakhi Vijan aka our very own Sweety of Hum Paanch and she walked us down the memory lane, shared some hilarious deets from sets, how they did not understand stardom, her dad objecting to her acting and not watching the show and much more. Read.
Ekta Kapoor's flagship show and one of the cult sitcoms on Indian television, Hum Paanch is back on TV amid lockdown. The show aired between 1995 and 1999 and was massively popular. There is no way one cannot remember the iconic characters on this show, be it Sweety (Rakhi Vijan), Anand Mathur (Ashok Saraf), Kajal (Bhairavi Raichura), etc. We EXCLUSIVELY spoke to Rakhi Vijan aka our very own Sweety and she walked us down the memory lane, shared some hilarious deets from sets, how they did not understand stardom, her dad objecting to her acting and not watching the show and much more.
Ask her how is she doing during this lockdown period in the view of coronavirus outbreak, Rakhi says, "I am enjoying myself. I am spending so much time with mom and dad which we don't get otherwise." Now that Hum Paanch is on air, is she watching that? To this, Rakhi reveals, "Finally, we will because initially dad and I never watched Hum Paanch. In 1996-1997, it was still a taboo for girls to start acting and my dad was so upset with me, he never watched my shows; he didn't speak to me, never saw my work."
"Now in 2020, we will sit together and watch," Rakhi sighs.
Rakhi also adds that she is happy that the show is back during this stressful time to make people laugh.
Tracing her journey, Rakhi reminiscences, "I never thought I would ever be an actor. I just wanted to work and do something out of my life. I knew Ekta from before, we used to hang out together, so, one day she offered this show to me and things just took off from there." About Sweety becoming such a hit character, Rakhi shares, "It is such a cute character and it was well crafted and performed, it had to be a hit. It is such a crazy, mad hatter, adorable and youthful character, there was no scope of it being a flop. It had to be a hit. It was very well crafted by Ekta. She is a genius."
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Was it difficult to play a character that was so dumb? "I am not a very smart woman. I go by my heart. I don't have a brain at all. When people are not very smart, there is a certain level of innocence in them and that innocence is very adorable. Similarly, Sweety was completely dumb but she thought she was super smart. But I loved it, enjoyed playing the character and did not find it tough. I am as mad as Sweety. It came easily to me. I am sorry people thought I am acting but I was playing myself," she laughs.
Revealing one hilarious incident from sets, Rakhi laughs out loud saying, "I have loads of memories from the set. We were all very young when we started working for Hum Paanch. It had been a year since we were shooting for Hum Paanch. We used to usually shoot inside a bungalow. But one day, we had an outdoor shoot and we saw a huge crowd gathered. We thought some accident might have taken place and were concerned without realizing that the crowd had gathered for us. At the age of 16-17, we didn't realize how popular we had become. Today the world had changed but we were not accustomed to all this popularity. We were very raw. After this, Bhairvi, Vandana and Me, we all were like 'oh shit, hum log toh famous ho gaye!' It was so funny."
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She confesses that even today, people call her Sweety. Writing is the biggest backbone for any show's success. She agrees, "Human Paanch had superb writing. The writer has never written for TV again. Imtiaz Patel wrote for the show and after this, he stopped writing for TV because he said he couldn't justify anything after HP."
Ekta Kapoor, the TV queen, started her career with this show. Rakhi asserts, "Ekta was 16 when she started Hum Paanch. She is a creative and hard-working girl. She used to come on sets and brief us, jack us when we weren't good, praise us, she used to sit with us. Once we would get a briefing from Ekta, no one could fail as an actor."
Television today is much more synchronised, but back then before the daily soaps took over, the artists would share makeup rooms and do a lot of rehearsals. "We used to work from 9-9 shift and for a 9 am shift, we would start rolling around 11 because every girl used to get ready by then. We used to have one makeup room and we used to love it. We were inseparable."
Rakhi elaborates, "We used to take a break at 1:30 PM and sleep for an hour. We used to wake up around 3:30 PM and then we used to finish the whole episode. The camera would not move, the characters would move. We used to have a chunk of dialogues that we would perform and try to do it in one take. During this, there was a lot of improvisation, we put in our lives in the show."
Does this watch television anymore? What does she miss about it? "No, I don't watch TV now. I miss comedy, fun on TV, Somewhere I can sit with my family."
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