Well-known film producer/ director Mahesh Bhatt is all set to start his television innings on a popular channel from September 12 with a Doon girl in the lead role. The television serial is ‘Namkaran’. ‘The Pioneer’ spoke to the television actor about the challenges and glamour of being in the film industry during her sojourn in Haridwar. The serial star Barkha Bisht Sengupta exhorts the young aspiring girls in film industry to face both success and failure gracefully, without rejoicing the one too much and also without being broken down by the other.
Barkha, 36, did her schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya FRI and has been shooting in various films and TV serials for more than a decade now. Talking about the challenges which any profession poses to the fair sex, especially the world of glitz and glamour, Barkha says it is meeting failure and success with equanimity. “I was lucky that I got my family’s support, many girls do not. A talented star like Pratyusha Bannerjee of Balika Vadhu fame committed suicide when she was left emotionally shattered. Women are naturally emotional. But they must learn to take success and failure in their stride. If I fail I can accept my failure gracefully,” said Barkha. Barkha has acted in various television serials like Parvarrish, Kuchh Khattee Kuchh Meethi and others.
Around eleven years ago when Barkha decided to become an actor, it was difficult for the family in the beginning to accept her profession which no family member had taken up before. Being daughter of a lieutenant Colonel who had fought 1971 Indo- Pak war and living in Defence Colony, Barkha was taking to a new assignment breaking the family traditions. “But my mother, Meena Bisht was very supportive. Once she allowed me to put my best foot forward then there was no looking back. If I can be even 10 per cent of what my mother is, I would consider myself a perfect mother. I aspire to be a mother like her. I try to imbibe one quality of hers in my life – to absorb all bitterness and give only happiness.”
The actor takes pride in stating that she inherited qualities of her father retired from Indian Army, lt Col Bisht to maintain fitness. “I have seen my dad playing lot of sports especially playing Squash which demands tremendous expense of body. He is a great swimmer. He has been a boxer. Even now when he is 70 he plays golf. Inspired, I do a lot of work outs. First thing I do after waking up in the mornings is to run. My husband is equally fit, in fact, both the men in my life inspired me to remain fit,” adds Barkha.
When asked about the theme of her upcoming serial Namkaran, Barkha Sengupta said, “The TV serial Namkaran has a strong story line which revolves around the story of mother and her daughter and I am playing the character of Asha, the mother of eight- year -old Avni who is born out of wedlock. There is lot of relationship which we are talking about in the serial.”
Barkha Sengupta’s role is unique as it is something that is striking at the pre-existing taboos of the society which always demands a girl to prove her identity with a man. The mother she is playing questions the custom of the society according to which a girl’s name needs the names of her father or her husband to survive. The mother embodies the question why a girl cannot stand upon the identity of her own. In the serial, Avni keeps on asking her mother Asha why her life is not normal like others, why her father does not stay with her.
When quizzed whether ‘Namkaran’ is a tele adaptation of Mahesh Bhatt’s famous movie Zakhm as is the buzz going around, Barkha said, “It is inspired from Mahesh Bhatt’s life and the people he has come to be intimate with in his life. Mahesh Bhatt ji says where Zakhm ends, Namkaran begins.”
