Amidst suspenseful dramas, psychological mind-benders and fast-paced thrillers dominating web space, a slow everyday story from writer Nikhil Vijay recently struck a chord with the masses.
Titled Gullak, the slice-of-life web series revolves around a lower middle-class family that finds happiness in small things. Gullak beautifully balances and explores the natural humour and hardships that a lot of Indian middle-class families go through.
And much of the credit for this can go to its brilliant cast, especially Geetanjali Kulkarni, who plays Shanti Mishra, the quintessential boss lady of the house who has to deal with her husband’s poor management skills, children's over the top demands and nosey neighbour.
Geetanjali's Shanti Mishra is such an insanely accurate portrayal of Indian housewives that it ends up avoiding the cliches and instead portrays the real-life tropes we all know too well. She has been nominated for Best Actress (Comedy) category at the second edition of iReel Awards, a News18 initiative to honour the individuals who have brought in a revolution in the web space.
In an exclusive chat with us, she said, “When Nikhil narrated me the script, I got nostalgic. My connection to TV is the kind of serials I used to watch as a kid like Buniyad, Hum Log, Ye Jo Hain Zindagi,, etc. Thus, my connection to that kind of story writing is very strong. So when Nikhil narrated this story to me, I realised I knew exactly what he wanted and what the genre was.”
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But like any other great piece of art, it was not a cakewalk for her. Born and raised in a Maharashtrian family, Geetanjali had to push herself hard to get the UP accent right for the show.
"The only issue is that I am a Maharashtrian and all the other people were from UP. But as the rehearsals ended, the cast and crew blended well. While I am KV and NSD alumni, I had Hindi speakers all around, but the accent that was required was very peculiar. While it was tough for me, all the other actors did it easily. We did a rehearsal for 10 days. And within those days, all the cast and crew of the set became a family. In fact, Jameel (Khan) and me were the only ones above 35 years of age on the set. The house in which we shoot, in Bhopal, it was a character in itself,” she added.
On receiving the nomination at the iReel Awards, the actress said, "Whenever all actors are given a platform where they are recognized, it really feels nice as there’s so much of hard work that has gone into it from so many people. Also, there is so much good content available right now, which we are not even aware of from various sources. That too gets noticed in these kinds of platform. We also feel good that if we worked hard, someone has noticed it."
The iReel Awards 2019 ceremony will take place at a glittering evening in Mumbai on September 23.
You can vote here: News18 iReel Awards 2019/Voting
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