No medium comes with any guarantee now: Shrenu Parikh

Shrenu Parikh, who hasn’t signed any new show after her last telly project went off air in February, was in her hometown Vadodara recently for a short trip and she says that it turned out to be “a really eventful trip.” The actress shares, “I surprised my dad by coming home on his 60^th birthday and the expression on his face was just priceless! He also retired recently, and we threw a retirement party, while there was another function organised by his colleagues and friends.” Excerpts from a chat:

I take a lot of pride in Vadodara’s garbas and I keep telling my industry friends about it.This time, Surbhi (Chandna) wanted to come here during Navratri but it didn’t work out as she had to go to Ahmedabad for a promotional trip. While a few small-scale Navratri events were organised last year, I feel that Vadodara garba ! This time, although I got to play garba only for a day, it was a surreal feeling. I also got to attend the and meet Atul Purohit. He is such a warm, loving, and down-to-earth person that I always cherish meeting him. Dancing to his songs like made me relive all my childhood memories this Navratri. My fans were quite surprised to spot me at the garba venue and they clicked selfies with me. However, I realised that I am getting old now (laughs)! I couldn’t play garba with the kind of zeal that I am used to.

While there have been offers after my last TV show went off air, I haven’t come across anything exciting yet. For me to take up another TV project, I need to be satisfied creatively as well as financially. While my fans are getting a little restless, I am prepared to wait it out for a good role. I have always picked my TV projects based on my character-it has to excite me, and I should be able to add my little touches to it. You can’t really decide about the genre on TV, change ! However, I would love to explore comedy on TV.

I think the pandemic has changed people’s viewing patterns and point of view. Thanks to the OTT boom, there is so much content available that people are spoilt for choice about what they want to watch. We have seen the film industry struggling to get people to the theatres but now, I feel people are warming up to the big screen experience again. At the same time, with too many options, we have also seen some big OTT platforms underperforming. This scenario has affected all the mediums because the demand-supply ratio has completely changed. There is so much supply and on TV, several shows have gone off air quickly because there are other producers who are ready with their shows. Several TV actors were badly affected by the pandemic and had no work for almost three years. So, there are actors who are ready to take a pay cut also. No medium comes with any guarantees now. Nobody really knows what’s going to work, . I have really enjoyed the OTT projects that I have done so far, which includes a couple of Gujarati projects.

Right now, I have no idea about my Diwali plans because I don’t know where I will be during the festival. However, I am really looking forward to a COVID-free Diwali and as a family, we will plan something nice.