Candid chat with Geetanjali Tikekar

Geetanjali Tikekar is on a sabbatical after her last show Tere Liye on Star Plus ended. “Currently I am busy taking care of my three and half year-old son Shaurya. Motherhood is a full time job.” Going on she says, “How have imes changed since we were kids, he is already in junior KG and I never saw the face of school till I was four and a half years.” Geetanjali feels bad for the pressure the poor kid is being made to go through. “He is learning to write and I can’t even scream at him when he makes mistakes as he is too small.” So do you think working in the TV industry has taught you patience? “This is one virtue what I have definitely picked up. Once I remember waiting for 17 hours before being told that there was no scene of mine for the day.” When do you plan to make a comeback on TV? “I will think of a return once Shaurya is a bit older and can take care of him.” So what kind of roles would you be looking at then? “I am quite a realistic person. Since I know leads will not be offered to me anymore, I will be content with parallel characters which have something to add to the overall narrative.” Geetanjali Tikekar who is married to actor Sikandar Kharbanda is quite upset with concept of the leaps. “After just two years as lead in Kasautii Zindagii Kay, I was made to play a mother.” But here she adds a caveat, “Today things are worst, producers are taking young kids as a lead to save on money. Tell me, would anyone know who today’s lead actors are? When I was doing Kasautii, people knew the person behind the character.” How are actors of your generation dealing with this change? “With most of my contemporaries feeling short changed, we have become dinosaurs sitting at home and spewing fire, wondering what has gone wrong with the TV industry.” She also rejects the popular perception that TV actors make good money. “We now rue the fact that we left our studies and turned to this craft. Had we done some professional courses, we would have earned much better,” she ends.