Aravind Kaushik is back on the small screen with the new fiction drama – Kamali . The director-screenwriter, who started off as a dubbing artiste, began his tryst behind the camera on the small screen before making his debut as a film director with Nam Areal Ondina , which introduced Rakshit Shetty.
Kaushik reveals that Kamali is the story about a young village girl who is a sports enthusiast and dreams of becoming a professional kabbadi player. The show will air on Zee Kannada, which also telecast Kaushik’s first serial, Arasi. “I feel like returning to my second home,” says the director, who adds that his inclination to come back to the medium of television “is simply because it has changed in the way it is marketed and the technicalities with which serials are made. There is so much advancement in technology and style. Initially, cinema was supposed to be grand, while TV was supposed to show typical stories aimed at a few women who watched serials during their free time. That is not the case any longer. There are programmes that cater to every age and they are on a par with cinema today. In fact, the lines between cinema and television have blurred.”
Having dabbled in both television and films as a director, Kaushik feels they feed off each other. “I learnt through the medium of television. I learnt the techniques from TV and implemented them in cinema. It works vice versa too — if there are experiments done in cinema, I try and use those in my serials,” says the director, who wants to continue balancing cinema and films in the future too.
“I believe in multi-tasking. Though the initial preps are the same for both mediums, serials are more like marathons and are more challenging when compared to cinema. You have longer commitments, more deadlines, planning, coordination and quality control. TV is more disciplined when compared to films.”
What is special about Kamali that lured him to this project? “It is completely content driven. It is the triumph of the human spirit — a battle between the haves and have-nots. The way Kamali looks at life and how she comes out of everything with a smiling face, will inspire a lot of people across the world. These situations will give viewers a lot of goose-bump moments on TV.”
Aspirations of the young
Amulya portrays the title role in the new series Kamali , which starts on Zee Kannada today. The actor is thrilled about her role and says she “never dreamt of becoming an actor.” After her stint in a reality show on Zee Kannada a few years ago, she says she received many offers for serials and films, but “felt I was not prepared and wanted to continue with my studies.”
However, she continued to receive offers and finally accepted a role for the show Swati Muttu on Suvarna. She was the second lead in it, and in Kamali plays the lead. “In Swati Muttu , I played a modern character with slight grey shades. Here, I play an innocent village girl with her own dreams and aspirations. It is a totally different experience. The dialogues in Kamali have the Mandya dialect and I am enjoying it thoroughly as I always wanted to do something like this.”
The other challenge, says Amulya, is to portray the character as a kabaddi player. “I had to play the sport for the role. It was tough and I even injured myself. Then I also had a scene, where I had to jump into a well. The character is totally into sports and is not docile, but one who fights for her equality and rights,” says Amulya, who is also open to acting in films but as of now her focus is only on Kamali as “TV takes you so close to the audience that they connect with you and identify you as the character you portray on the screen and not by your real name. That is not possible in films.”
Kamali will be telecast on weekdays from May 28 at 7 pm on Zee Kannada
