Paras Kalnawat, who used to play the role of Samar Shah in Anupamaa, recently left the show. His contract was terminated by the makers after he signed celebrity dance reality show Jhalak Dikhla Jaa 10 without allegedly informing them. Signing off as Samar Shah, Paras dropped a video on social media in which he called TRP queen Anupamaa, a ‘nightmare’.
In an exclusive interview with News18 Showsha, Paras Kalnawat explained that there’s a lot of politics in the industry and added that it is difficult to survive unless one is himself a part of the same.
“There are things which are visible to people but there are also things which are happening at not the forefront and people do not know about them. I don’t want to speak a lot about it, but I just want to say what my co-actor Anagha Bhosale had also said in her interview, there’s lots and lots of politics around. If you are not a part of this politics, you feel left out. If you are a calm person, you cannot survive in that politics,” he said.
“This (politics) happens everywhere. I have also been a victim of the same. There’s a lot of mess around,” the actor added.
Paras Kalnawat also claimed that he had no idea about his termination and went on to say that it was not even discussed with him. He also called his termination a ‘PR tactic’ and said, “I had no idea about the termination because no meeting was held with me and nobody had also informed me about it. It happened overnight. I received the termination letter in my mail at 8pm, I got the message from the production that they have sent me the termination letter on mail. Within 2-4 mins, there were news articles on it. It was all a PR tactic, I would say. I was not informed. On one hand, they sent me the termination letter, on the other hand, they sent it all over in the news.”
The production house had announced Paras’ termination earlier this week with Rajan Shahi issuing a statement that said, “We as a production house won’t entertain breach of contract. We have terminated his services as an actor with immediate effect. We wish him all the best for his future endeavours.”
The 26-year-old actor also mentioned that things could have been sorted out if Anupamaa’s makers would have discussed their issues with him. “If we would have sat together and talked, if Rajan (Shahi) sir would have allowed me to meet him, then things would have been sorted out. He messaged me that he does not even want to meet me,” Paras told us.
On being asked what was the reaction of his co-stars to his termination, Paras revealed that only a few Anupamaa actors contacted him while others decided not to even drop him a message. He alleged that it is because they want to be in the good books of the production house.
“I am actually surprised that only a few of them contacted me after they got to know about this (termination). I think everyone fears that if the makers have taken some decision and despite that, if they support somebody, it might not keep them in the makers’ good books. Because it will be like, they are being sympathetic towards me or are taking my side. Therefore, only a few people called or messaged me and talked to me. Some people also said that ‘You were completely right, you are not at fault, you don’t have to be scared’,” Paras shared.
He also shared that while Nidhi Shah, Sudhanshu Pandey and Muskan Bamne called him, Madalsa Sharma and Alpana Buch dropped him a message. However, others, including the show’s lead Rupali Ganguly, did not call or message Paras. “Nidhi definitely called me up. Muskan (Bamne) called. Sudhanshu (Pandey) sir called and Madalsa (Sharma) messaged me. Baa aka Alpana Buch also dropped me a message. Apart from this, no one has messaged me. Those who saw this and those who saw my social media post too, if you notice, none of my co-actors even liked that post. Only Ashish Mehrotra liked it. Apart from this, no one even liked that post because they want to be in the good books of makers. I completely understand their part as well,” he concluded.
News18 reached out to the production house for their version of the state of affairs, but there was no response till the time of publishing this article.
