Her effervescent energy, popularity, and three-decade-long career in the film industry makes actor Juhi Chawla tailor-made for the intimate setting the small screen offers its viewers. After some stints with the medium a few years ago, the actor will lend her voice to host Sharanam: Safar Vishwaas Ka on EPIC channel. Significantly distinct from Chawla’s earlier television appearances on reality and chat shows, this spiritual show travels across India, covering places of worship of numerous religions and faiths.
“It is about faith and personal accounts of people as well,” the actor says in a phone conversation. “Because they are who bring the faith to a place.” She explains that the series attempts to blend the personal journey of pilgrims along with the history and mythology that surround each site. She admits on being completely sold on the showwhen she heard that the series would cover diverse faiths. Chawla jokes that she had asked the show’s makers to let her travel to the many shrines as well. “They [said] ‘sorry, but I don’t think we can afford that. We are happy with you just doing the voiceover!’” she says with her trademark giggle.
The actor shares that when she was a child, her family would visit temples on special occasions, and she was not brought up as particularly religious in that sense. But her marriage to businessman Jay Mehta changed some things. “My mother-in-law [Sunayana Mehta has an] amazing inner strength and assuredness, [and] she is not rattled [easily],” says Chawla. “What stabilises and anchors her is her deep faith in her guru, [the late] Maa Anandmayi,” she adds.
The actor speaks earnestly, her chirpy voice softening as she divulges how she dealt with intractable phases in her life. The actor lost both parents, and her mother had passed away unexpectedly in a car accident. Years later, tragedy struck as suddenly again when she lost her brother, Bobby Chawla. “I was like a leaf in the wind,” Chawla describes herself during those periods of her life. “Then I realised there is another way of living, and it is this,” she says, referring to how her mother-in-law served as her inspiration.
Yet Chawla finds that she does not need to visit a temple to practice her faith. “You go to a [place of worship] because of the way it is even constructed. It gives you a sense of awe and wonder,” she emphasises. She shares that lending her time to the show is also a part of her spiritual exploration, underlining the personal nature of believers and their pilgrimages – a major aspect of what the show delves into.
While covering each site, Chawla found that she was moved by the set of practices tied to each holy place – such as the importance of seva (service) at the Golden Temple, and to Sikhism. Over a span of 26 episodes, Sharanam traverses 26 holy sites, and the first episode unpacks the stories around the Kamakhya Temple, a revered Shakti Pitha in Guwahati.
The past few years in Chawla’s career mark an increased affinity for experimentation – moving away from her popularity in roles that heightened her innocence and angelic demeanour. In Onir’s I Am (2011) she played a Kashmiri Pandit, and Soumik Sen’s Gulaab Gang (2014) she essayed a manipulative politician. On television though, the actor has largely worked on reality shows and stayed away from fiction. Apart from hosting award shows, Chawla was a judge on the third season of the celebrity dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa , and hosted a children’s talk show called Badmaash Company: Ek Shararat Hone Ko Hai , among others
The actor has been careful in choosing what she does on television. Drawing from the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Yuddh as an example, Chawla explains that something was amiss about Sony’s psychological thriller series. “I just felt that I like seeing Amitji as Amitji, and I like seeing him on the big screen,” she shares. Yet Chawla confesses that she enjoys watching Bachchan host Kaun Banega Crorepati .
For viewers, it is interesting how the television screen serves as a more personal platform to connect with superstars, who are normally distanced from them by the grandeur of the big screen and larger-than-life films they are a part of. “I’ll be me,” asserts Chawla, “and I’ll bring what I have built over the years, [what] God has blessed me with, and I’ll take that forward.”
Sharanam: Safar Vishwaas Ka will be aired today (and every Tuesday) on EPIC channel at 8 p.m.
