When Dilip Joshi reacted to a fan's comment on Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah's writing had degraded; says 'To write a comedy show for such a long time is not a joke'

Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, a popular sitcom on Indian television, has been in the spotlight for both its content and controversy. The television show has recently made headlines as numerous actors abruptly quit in the middle of a scene for various reasons. Dilip Joshi had an intriguing interaction with Sumeet Raghavan and Sourabh Pant, he shared what changed in the writing of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah's episodes.

A fan had mentioned that the writing of the show has degraded with time, to which Dilip Joshi replied, "It has been 12 years, writers are also now, see normally what happens when you go for quantity then the quality shall suffer for sure. Earlier, we used to do weekly, so they would write 4 episodes and the rest was to shoot next month. So they had the whole month to write and churn out new episodes. But now, it has become more like a factory and they have to keep giving new episodes and ideas on a daily basis. So I agree, all episodes cannot be great at that level when you are doing a daily soap for such a long time. Somewhere I do feel that certain episodes are not up to the mark as far as the humour is concerned."

Dilip Joshi further revealed how they also contribute to making the scenes more humourous for the audience, "As an actor, even we feel, that when we have the scene in our hands and see that there aren't any punches then all of us try and work it out. We try to bring out humour by doing different movements or adding something that would make something funny for the episode."

Dilip lauds the writers for continuing to give out episodes every day in the time span of the show, "I still give full credit to the writers, to write a comedy show for such a long time is not a joke. It is really difficult to write so many new punches, bringing new ideas and new tracks for more than a decade hasn't been an easy job. So thoda toh unnees bees hota hi hai. But they have been doing such a commendable job for these many years."

Dilip Joshi also addressed the 'stereotyping content and characters' in the show, he said, "There have been instances where we feel that we need to be cautious. 20 years ago people would make content irrespective of how it would affect people. Now, there have been enough restrictions in content, even with songs, I will have to check whether the song's rights are available only then I can use it in the scene. We need to keep in mind how to put across the content, kya bolne se kise bura lag jayega nahi pata."

We have come across instances where something happened and people would go on social media and write, 'We will ban Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, we will stop watching the show,' and all. At times, they even write shut the show, I feel like saying that 'tujhe dekhna nahi pasand hai toh TV bandh kar do.' People keep commenting something or the other for it, so if we keep listening to all of them then there is no way we can continue working.

Dilip shared how his impromtu dialogue got banned from the show, "Yeh jo 'paagal aurat' wala tha, woh maine improvise kiya." On set, I improvised the 'pagal aurat' phrase based on how Daya reacted. There was a scenario on set, and the way Dayaben reacted let it fall out of my mouth while filming the scene. Baad mein, uspe kuch women's lib ya koi movement tha, mujhe bataya gaya, 'Aage se, aap yeh nahi bolenge'"