TV's no longer a trendsetter: Yash Tonk

He is best remembered as Kunal Sikand in the show Kaahin Kissi Roz which earned him popularity as an actor, following which he played the male lead in Karam Apna Apna and shook a leg with wife Gauri Yadav Tonk in Nach Baliye.
After essaying roles in many television shows and playing character roles in movies, Yash is now treading a tad different path.
The actor who’s now doing the show Shobha Somnath Ki claims that he is at ease with the kind of roles he plays — be it roles with negative shades, character roles or positive roles. He prefers to remain at ease with the character he plays on-screen.
In his new show, Yash plays the character of Dadda Chaluka, a brave man loved by all the people. "This is the first time I am doing a historical show and I am excited because I have not done anything like this before," says Yash adding, "The only problem while doing a costume drama is that you have to wear heavy costumes and in this sultry, sweaty weather it’s going to be tough."
The language used in the show is shudh Hindi. For Yash who hails from Sonepat (Haryana), getting the pronunciation right wasn’t tough. "Coming from Haryana my Hindi is good but I had to work on the dialect used in the show. I would catch the assistant directors, writers and tell them to correct my mistakes," says Yash who has recently learnt horse riding and is enjoying doing action scenes.
Yash says that he does only those roles that excite him. "I have been doing TV and films simultaneously since eight years. I would want to do films only if something meaty and significant comes my way," he says.
Quiz Yash whether it is easy to enter the television industry, considering that there are many newcomers in the industry, and he says, "I don’t know about that but when we started there were faces one would remember.
The kind of exposure we got from TV helped us as a good training ground where we could prepare ourselves for films. TV actors knew how to carry themselves off, they would set fashion trends and were once youth icons. Now there’s a dearth of such stars on TV. Today, as the shows are based on real and rural story lines, there’s very little of glamor in the shows. Earlier daily shows were pure fiction. A realistic depiction of small town and rural lifestyle is the name of the game today. And with so many new faces being launched, it is very difficult to retain the flavor of the shows," he says.
On the personal front, Yash is loving every moment of his parenthood as he is enjoying seeing his two daughters grow up. Why don’t we get see to much of his wife Gauri on screen? "Gauri is busy with bringing up our daughters. They need care and attention. We have done couple of reality shows together. We’ve different perspectives on TV. So I told her to do only things that she likes to do the most. She is taking it easy at the moment," he says on a parting note.