To borrow from television’s own vocabulary, she is Kannada television’s ‘favourite daughter-in-law’. As Gowri in Putta Gowri Maduve , a hugely popular serial on Kannada television, Ranjani Raghavan has numerous anecdotes that will attest to this popularity off-screen, of being surrounded by fans, mostly children, and of even being kissed by older women who want to show how much they love Gowri.
But ask Ranjani what she thinks of Gowri herself, a character she has been playing in over 1000 episodes now, and she says with a rare candour that Gowri is a little too unreal. “She is impractical. Who cries so much? And who will go behind a man for three years in spite of him giving her a divorce and going behind another woman?” she asks, during a telephonic conversation.
When it began, Putta Gowri Maduve was the Kannada version of the popular Hindi serial Balika Vadhu . Somewhere along the way, as Ranjani explains, it became a different serial with a storyline of its own. Ranjani was cast as the grown-up version of Gowri when the serial took a leap and decided to continue its narrative with a change in generation.
Currently, in the serial, Gowri has a complicated relationship with Mahesh, a man she was married to as a child. The presence of Hima, another woman in Mahesh’s life has made matters worse too for a while now.
Trained in Carnatic music, Ranjani’s tryst with television began when she was in college. “Nagabharana sir was conducting auditions for a historical. The team had come to college and I thought I’ll give it a shot. Unfortunately, that serial was never made. Instead, I landed a role as the heroine’s sister in a serial called Akashadeepa . I began shooting for it and soon got a call from the Putta Gowri .. team.”
What drew her to Putta Gowri Maduve particularly? “I wanted to do a lead role obviously. And Putta Gowri... was already popular by then. I was pursuing my studies simultaneously too. So I thought instead of doing two-three small roles, a popular lead role would be better,” she says.
Ranjani exudes a naive honesty when she speaks. She is candid about her fun, yet deeply frustrating relationship with her on-screen avatar, about the popularity she enjoys thanks to Gowri and about the realities of the industry. But this however does not mean that she does not enjoy her stint as a television actor. She calls it an “excellent experience, one that has catapulted her to fame in a single shot”.
Ranjani also explains that a character like Gowri, the absolutely good daughter-in-law, is indeed not an exception in the world of television. “All lead roles on television, especially the female roles, are projected as personifications of perfection, as stellar examples of goodness; as women that take the idea of sacrifice to another level. There are two kinds of roles on television basically: first is positive and dumb and the second is negative and super smart. Luckily, Gowri has a few shades of grey too. She has of late been fighting for her right, thankfully.”
So what happens when Ranjani cannot relate to what Gowri is doing? “ We laugh on the sets when we find something ludicrous. But to tell you the truth, the audience likes this format. They like to see a lot of hatred. They want to see paranormal activity, snakes and spirits. They wants to see lots of crying. They want to see rituals which are blindly followed. There was a brief period when the programmers tried to introduce new content but those shows flopped. A show like Putta Gowri. .. enjoys a rating of 15-18 which is perhaps the highest in south India,” she says. Of course, the adulation and praise aside, the repercussions of playing a character day in and day out are many. “There was a phase when I was reacting to situations the way Gowri would. I had become extremely soft-spoken and emotional. But I got over that gradually,” she reveals. Whenever it gets really monotonous or as Ranjani puts it, “when there is too much crying,” she tells her director who immediately changes track, she adds.
Today Ranjani is also trying her luck in films. She has finished shooting for ‘Rajahamsa’, a film directed by Jadesh Kumar Hampi and has also signed another film titled ‘Subba-Subbi’. Is television the launch pad for films? “It is an easy route but it does not assure success to one. The film industry is a different ball-game. You have to start from scratch.”
While films offer a change and a much-needed distraction from Gowri, Ranjani says that there is a comfort zone in television that is hard to ignore or forgo. “There is a family atmosphere on sets. There is ample flexibility too. I completed my MBA simultaneously in the three years that I shot for Gowri.” And then there is the popularity, one that is unmatched even by films, she adds. “Films may come and go. Television stars are closer to people’s hearts and minds. The audience does not see us as actors but as their family members. It is a different kind of adulation and intimacy that works with this popularity.”
