Actor MUKUl DEV, making a comeback on TV after a decade, talks to SANGEETA YADAV about his recent historical show 21 Sarfarosh Saragahri
You are returning to TV after 10 years. What was keeping you busy these many yearsIJ
I have been shooting non-stop and must have done 45 films in Hindi, Punjabi, Telugu, Kannad and Bengali. I was away from TV primarily because I was hoping to get a role where I could fit in, something like 21 Sarfarosh Saragahri which I grabbed immediately.
How is it to play the main antagonistIJ
It has been fantastic. The character Gul Baadshah is basically a mountain man, a tribal Pashtun lord and small chieftain who is extremely manipulative, shrewd, a brilliant swordsman and very good horseman. He collects 15 to 20 others tribal lords like him and forms an army of 10,000 Afghan against the 21 Sikh Regiment posted at lockhart, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. He rages war against them over the issue of land which he believed was given to him by heirloom. He is the kind of character which I could not really foresee and anticipate coming to me, especially on TV. The amount of work creative heads have done on this character is commendable.
What is the best part of the storyIJ
The bravado of the Sikh Army and the emotional connect is the USP of the story as there comes a point where the Government and higher authorities in the Army give up. They are told to put the arms down as the fighting was over a small piece of land with the illiterate people did not know the worth of. But it was these 21 sardars who refused and had a sense of belonging to their motherland that made them give up their lives. I will call this show modern history, something that happened towards the end of the 19th Century and showed a revolution happening alongside as Afghans got fascinated by watching Cannon and barrel gun for the first time.
What were the challenges that came on your way while working on this showIJ
When we were shooting in leh and we had to shoot a combat scene at a place which had no greenery and the oxygen level was way below the mark. The terrain was rocky and slippery. And we had to deal with mountain horses instead of trained horses that come for the film industry. To understand their behaviour and ride them was a challenge. Though I know horse riding, it was more than 10 years that I had the last ride. The challenge was to make myself comfortable. I was very fearful of me experiencing what Nana Patekar did in a scene in Welcome movie where he couldn’t stop the horse.
How did you get the dialect rightIJ
I tried to speak Hindi and Urdu the way a Pashtun would which meant not being too articulate and make it look like a copy paste language. We use a lot of Pashtun words in the middle and try to explain through gestures to make it look natural. For this, I took my father’s help because he has grown up studying Urdu. That time there was no Hindi taught in school. There were just Urdu, Persian and Parsi. I took help from him when it came to pronouncing certain words.
Why is there a rise of historical stories on TVIJ
Watching a historical show quenches the intelligent quotient of the audience. I feel historical stories don’t have a copyright. Everyone has a certain perception of historical events. Which perception is enjoyed the most by the audience ends up becoming the yardstick. For example, there have been many filmmakers who have made their version of the story of Mahatma Gandhi but we remember and found Ben Kingsley’s Gandhi better. Though the stories are inspired by real life, it is presented in a fictional format to suit the small screen. Showing how you perceive the battle and what you think Was what we did. The real stuff is in books by many people.
22 years back, when you started acting on TV and now, how has TV changedIJ
When I began, TV was doing well with serials like Buniyaad and Sailaab. That era got replaced by the era of daily soap and drama queens. Now with the arrival of web series, there is so much more one can do. The younger generation is looking for sensible and realistic content. With channels like Discovery Jeet, we are trying to break that typical path that TV channels have been following. I found Epic channel good as it came up with some excellent content but unfortunately it couldn’t make its mark.