Ali Asgar defended his decision to play characters in drag on Kapil Sharma’s show; Mukesh Khanna attacked the show as "ashleel"

MUMBAI: The Kapil Sharma Show star Ali Asgar played key roles and has defended his portrayal of drag characters. From 2013 to 2016, Ali portrayed Dadi on Comedy Nights with Kapil, and from 2016 to 2017, he played Nani on The Kapil Sharma Show.

Ali recently responded to actor Mukesh Khanna's term for his character as "fuhad (awkward)" in a conversation on his YouTube channel, saying, “It’s your personal opinion. So I can’t say anything. People always ask why they make a boy into a girl. The reason for it, from my understanding, is that nobody’s dadi (grandmother) will be like me. She wouldn’t be that energetic.”

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He continued, “The timing of our shootings would be very skewed. We used to shoot very late in the night, after shooting two episodes in the day. There had to be gag and integration, gag and integration, so it used to get very late. Now, in all this, if you make a senior actress dadi then she’d have a tough time shooting so late, being an old lady.”

Mukesh Khanna cut Ali off, and added, “That’s not the right reason, do heroines not work raat raat bhar (on night shifts)?” Ali continued, “My second reason is, when we make a boy into a woman, then it is not an original character by itself. Hence, we can take a lot of creative liberty and do a lot of masti (fun). Since the character is not original, there is nothing to get offended about.”

Then, as he reflected on his time spent on the popular comedy program, Ali thanked Kapil for his comedic sensibility. He stated, “The premise of the show is of a family which is glamour struck. Then there is a dadi, there are these two sisters, Gutthi, the character Sunil (Grover) plays, there is a servant and a wife. It is a poor family, they don’t have money, they are kangaal (broke). All the characters that we played on the show, we were all underdogs. Before making fun of someone else we would make fun of ourselves.”

“Kapil’s knowledge is phenomenal, he knows the pulse of the audience, it is amazing. He knows exactly which jokes will work and which will fall flat. We’ve seen it in live shows, what he used to say would happen. He is blessed in that way,” Ali concluded.

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Credit-The Indian Express