Actor Rohit Chandel who is currently seen in Siddharth Kumar Tewary’s Escaype Live shares his overall journey of portraying Meena Kumari. His performance has garnered lots of love from critics as well as the audience.
He says,”When Siddharth Kumar Tewary narrated the script to me I really liked the concept. The characters from Darkie, to Krishna to Aamcha, Fetish, Dance Rani and Meena Kumari are the ones who represent the people on social media nowadays. But I think Meena Kumari is quite different from the rest. These characters have left their originality to be on the app and in the race but Meena Kumari has not.” Speaking about the man behind the series Siddharth Kumar Tewary, Rohit says,”I have never seen anyone more hardworking than him. He has given me a lot of motivation for this character as I have lost 10 kgs. I used to be on calorie deficiency and wasn't having carbs. We used to shoot 18-20 hours a day as many of our schedules got canceled due to covid. We had shot in very difficult situations. Being on low carbs, as they are the source of energy, was difficult. Even if one day I used to eat a bit of carb then it showed on my face and was out of characterization. After the shoot of 18-20 hours, I used to get emotional feeling that I can't do this anymore and there I used to see Siddharth sir awake and working. I don't think that for the past two and half years he would have slept for more than four hours. I went to him and said that I got demotivated a bit but when I thought about you, I got the inspiration to keep going.”
Rohit feels that Meena Kumari has been the most special and impactful character he has ever played. He adds,”I may have learnt Meena Kumari's part 100 times but the whole script I read only once. I wanted to explore the series and seeing it I saw that Siddharth Kumar Tewary has made a masterpiece. If Rajkumar is restricted then Meena Kumari has freedom. Most of the people told me not to do method acting as it would affect my psychology. It affected me but it was worth it. For the vibe to come out natural, I used this technique and it turned out well and people are liking it. It took me 2 years to get in the shape of Meena Kumari. I used to sit like a girl, talk like a girl and went totally into method acting. The journey of Meena Kumari is a subconscious journey and the journey of Rajkumar is a conscious one. Many people think that a boy just warps a girl's dress and then comes on Escaype Live but no it's a story of a girl who acts like a boy because of the society. She is a girl just in another body. Both the characters were not easy to play because Rajkumar had that line where neither he had to play the alpha male nor behave like a complete girl, so overall characterization of Rajkumar is of Ardhanareshwar. The biggest task for me was to reach out to SKT's mind as to what kind of Meena Kumari he wanted. On the last day of shooting, I could see his proud eyes and he said that I performed 1000 times better than what he had thought. This feedback was a very proud thing for me.”
