Actor Gul Panag says that it’s an individual’s personality which determines the change in human relationships over time. By Team Viva
It’s not working between us anymore.’ ‘Things are not the same.’ ‘We are not compatible now.’ ‘It’s different.’ There are times when two people in a relationship might start feeling the pinch. They begin questioning each other’s love for themselves. They might also feel that things aren’t going the way they had imagined them to be. For actor Gul Panag, who is currently featuring in MX Player’s web series, Pawan & Pooja, apart from misunderstandings and a lack of time for each other, it is also a person’s individuality which gradually becomes a major reason of change in a relationship.
Giving a reference of her own marriage, Gul says, “A relationship keeps getting hard to maintain at every level. The definition of love keeps changing because people change. It’s an individual’s personality that changes the meaning of love for her/him as well. For instance, I have been with Rishi (Attari) for two decades now. I was a different person when I met him and so was he when he met me. But today, we are completely different because of our experiences and how we have grown. We have come a long way and have changed. How can then we expect our relationship to be the same?”
Her character, Pooja, and her relationship with Pawan Mehra (played by Sharman Joshi) showcase a similar thing. The series revolves around three couples with the same names but different age groups — old (60s-70s), mid (40s-50s) and millennial (20s-30s). For each couple, meaning of love, and the way of looking at their relationship, differs. The mid Pawan and Pooja are caught in a midlife crisis, where they have the plateau not just in their love life but as well their careers. Gul says, “Change in a relationship is inevitable. Why will it not change? That’s exactly my Pooja’s problem. She is carrying the burden of an unrealistic relationship. That is what most couples face. Our relationships change. And it is very obvious because you have changed with time. That is exactly the meat of mid Pooja’s character.”
She finds a connect with her character. Was this the reason she said yes to the role? She tells us, “I am stealing Mahesh sir’s answer here. When somebody reaches out to you for the character of Pooja in a show called Pawan & Pooja, it gives you a strong motivation because it is a crucial character. There are three stories and six protagonists. It’s a great character to play and yet, equally challenging because it is not some larger than life character. She’s not a classic army officer with a great body language. It’s about the smaller details and circumstances. It is about people in ordinary circumstances who are actually extraordinary. She’s not a gangster. If you were to ask me to define the mid Pooja, beyond the fact that she’s in her late 30s and early 40s, she has a child and she has been with her husband for 15 years. She is bored. Her relationship makes her feel stagnant. She is just a wife.”
The actor, recalling her own previous roles, says that Pooja is different and cannot be restricted to any particular label. “In Student Of The Year 2, it was a smart, fit coach. There were several adjectives to describe her personality. In Family Man, there are again multiple adjectives to define Saloni, my character. In Bypass Road, I play the antagonist, who has an attitude of her own. But Pooja can’t be labeled. It’s the reason why as an actor it is far more challenging to play her part. How do I make you want to watch Pooja? The only way I can make you see Pooja is by being as real as possible because it’s very much derived from real life.”
Talking about the millennial couple in the show, she points out that the essence of love hasn’t changed as it is perceived to be. It’s only the ways of looking at it that have changed. She says, “I think love has always remained the same. It’s only now that we are vocalising it through various media. If we talk in context of India, out of 135 crore people, not many people are actually in a live-in. The total viewership of English media is 20 crore. Out of that, 20 per cent is the conservative lot. Yes, it has always been complicated. And today, we are in an environment where there is a lot of pressure. People are compelled to put their best feet forward. They are constantly questioning, ‘Am I good enough?’ Social media is promoting that pressure and you are constantly measuring your worth with other people’s yardstick at each level. Relationships are the same. They should look good enough on social media to be labelled as ‘goals’, no matter how they are in reality. People hunting the spark which was there when they first met is not going to be there because the people have changed. And for millennials, a lot is defined through Instagram today.”
Gul says that apart from everything else, she was happy to see that the show doesn’t dramatise the love between the three couples. “They are very organic and straight out of reality. The stories do not uphold the cliché of any happily-ever-afters. Their problems are believable. They compel you to realise the fault lines in your own relationship.”
Photo: Pankaj Kumar
