I am happy to play mother at 39: Chinmayi Sumeet

Chinmayi Sumeet plays Babi, Nakusha’s very strong mother in the recently launched Colors soap, Laagi Tujhse Lagan. TellyChakkar chatted with her. Ask her if Laagi… is her comeback and she retorts, “But I never went anywhere, in fact I hardly did any work on Hindi TV except for a few cameos. Otherwise no one offered me anything interesting.” She admits she wanted to be with her children till something worthwhile came along. “I wanted to be with my kids, that is why I did not accept any soaps, but now they have grown up. My son pushed me into restarting my work. Whenever he would come for my plays he would tell me to work in serials too. I thought I have given 10 years of my life to my kids, so now is the time to resume worked.” She says she could connect immediately with Babi when it was first narrated to her. “When I was given a brief about this character during the auditions, I could immediately connect to it. I am aware about the current scenario of television and I knew no one will offer me lead roles. In fact I am thankful they offered me a mother’s role because I have seen girls younger than me playing grandmothers! At 39, I will get a mother’s role only and I am happy for it.” Chinmayi doesn’t really care for the dolled-up looks TV actresses portray these days. “This look is fine. I didn’t want to do a role which would require me to doll up liked a Christmas tree. When my kids saw the promos of this show, they were happy I had kept ‘Babi’ very real. The producers had seen my work in plays and most of the actors are from theatre so we never had to do any workshop before the show. Hemal, Paresh and director Ankush knows how to keep the story real and nice,therefore it was good.” Talking about balancing her family and work she says: “I have been working on stagefor 19 years and now I am ready to do TV exclusively for some time. Now my in-laws are there to support my kids and I am getting used to this daily soap routine. Moreover on the sets as well I feel like being with my family as Nakusha and Jay, my children in the show, are very possessive about me, they keep fighting to be with me. So it is fun.”