The show that catapulted Colors to the No 1 slot will be folding up in a fortnight. Touted as a VFX wonder on small screen, Naagin turned many eyeballs. SANGEETA YADAV finds out that the show buffs need not worry, season II is in the pipeline
A high-drama climax and happy ending will mark telly’s VFX magnum opus Naagin all set to fold up on May 14, only to return with a hiss for a second season “sometime soon”.
Grapevine has it thatNaagin, hogging limelight as a scientific fantasy thriller, will see Shivanya (Mouni Roy) getting pregnant after having lost all her snake powers after consummating her marriage with Ritik (Arjun Bijlani). Shivanya will hold a Kali Puja to regain her powers, take the avatar ofkaali and kill her fake mother-in-law Yamini (Sudha Chandran). Though the baby’s birth with supernatural powers will unfold in the next season, this climax will leave you asking for more.
“Naagin has sustained on the top from the start with a high rating between 4.2 to 5.8 and it pulled the Colors channel on the No 1 slot. I’m thankful to Ekta ma’am who thought I was capable to play Shivanya. We've worked for this day in and day out. After the show goes off air, I am going to host So You Think You Can Dance and take a much-needed break before returning with a bang,” Mouni Roy tells you.
Arjun Bijlani, meanwhile, says that the concept of a man getting married to a woman who turns out to be anaagin, was gripping enought to catch viewers.
“If you come to know your wife is anaagin, what would your reaction beIJ That’s what fascinated the viewers. Being a part of the show has been amazing. It got me love and popularity. We have got emotionally attached to it. The good part is that the show is ending on a high note. It has been a short & sweet journey.Naagin has created history and given producers a different take on finite series,” Bijlani says.
For Arjun, whose claim to fame was through his performance in left Right left, Miley Jab Hum Tum and Meri Ashiqui Tumse Hi, Naagin was the most difficult. “In comparison to other daily shows, Naagin was 10 to 15 times tougher in execution. When you have such high drama, shooting in croma for the first time becomes tricky. A lot of scenes have been recreated with computer graphics. The learning was constant,” Arjun says.
The actors went out of their comfort zone for this show and their hard work paid off with a huge fan following. “There was a scene where to save myself from thenaagin’s bite, I jump off a cliff and hang precariously from a tree. This was shot on croma and I was on the harness for eight hours, swinging up and down. When you see it in one-hour episode, everything seems easy and quick but it took us two days to shoot that sequence. My thighs and shoulders got bruised and pained a lot,” Bijlani says.
Mouni, too, had to undergo many challenges. “I had to wear a lycra costume every day and shoot at Film City which is so hot. I shot a sequence at Mud Island under scorching heat and then I was stationed under water for 10 hours to shoot another sequence. That got me 103 degree fever. Sometimes I was hung on a rope in the jungle and had to even climb a tree,” Roy reveals.
It was director Santaram Varma, the man behind Ekta Kapoor’s Jodha Akbar, who made it easier for the actors’ with his clear approach and guidance.
“Santaram is one of the best directors in television. He is technically strong and a good guide. Actors are also directors in some ways but, he used to change many scenes. We often wondered whether that was a gross digression from the script. But we just believed in him and when we saw it on the screen, we found it amazing,” Bijlani tells you.
