Masakali Mayhem: Actress Nisha Nagpal-production house draw daggers

Confusion reigned supreme on the sets of Sahara One’s popular show Masakali three days back when leading lady Nisha Nagpal mysteriously disappeared without a whisper leaving the show’s production house Swami Films and its creative heads in a lurch. With their lead actress gone, the show came to a standstill. The crew made vigorous attempts to trace the missing actress but unfortunately all efforts came to naught. While the production house was at its wit’s end, Nisha is said to have established contact with them via email stating that she had to fly down to Dehradun urgently as her mom had taken ill. The creatives who were grappling with a situation in hand implored the actress to return soon for the sake of the show which couldn’t continue without her presence. But Nisha allegedly told them that her return would happen only after her mother completely recuperates. Just when the creatives were trying to come to terms with the fact that Nisha could be absent for long, in came another missile in the form of a second email from Nisha. In the said email sent at 1.30 am today, Nisha announced her decision to move on from the show owing to professional and personal reasons without elaborating any further about the same. (Tellychakkar has a copy of the said mail). However, creatives at Swami Films allege that Nisha decided to move on after she bagged a bigger and better role in Star Plus’ mega serial, Veera. A creative we spoke to, on condition of anonymity, said, “Nisha had an exclusive contract with us. With this decision, she has not only broken the contract but also shown how unprofessional an actress she is. We are now deciding on the next course of action to be adopted against her.” When we rang up Nisha, the actress had an altogether different story to say. Accusing the production house of non-payment of dues, Nisha said, “I was not paid for the last six months and despite me asking them to pay me they haven’t. Hence I moved on.” When we rechecked with Swami Films about Nisha’s allegation of non-payment of dues, the creatives pooh-poohed it as false and baseless accusations. “We have made payments to her. She is a liar and complete unprofessional.” Well, with both sides trading accusations and counter-accusations, this looks much like any other drama-filled Indian soap opera. Talk about reel spilling into real! Wonder who will come out triumphant in this battle. Let’s wait and see.