"Screen presence is actually a god's gift to the actors" :Kanika Shivpuri

Actors from the older generation today have ample of role-play to their credits; be mothers, grandmothers or the friendly/ wile aunts. Often one realises that even though they have limited screen space, they end up at the better end with a better deal with greater variations in emoting various shades in the assigned role. We caught up with Kanika Shivpuri the veteran actress, of Ashiq Banaya Aapne, Kal Ho Na Ho(remember the three old ladies in the film our Dearest Sushma Seth's friends singing bhajans every morning?), Gadar (remember Sunny's mummy?)et al. to her credit. Her last venture on TV was the role of a rock that she essayed the wile mother of Varun Badola in Astitiva: Ek Prem Kahaani. She now dons a new look inKasturi: Lakhon Jaisi par Lakhon Main Ek. Kanika who plays a grandmother to Kasturi isn't the typical boring and preachy types. She is a grandma who moves with the times, absolutely chilled out, hip and happening! How much does she enjoy the role? "I thoroughly enjoy it because we are all like that somewhere. She often thinks of herself as Madhubala: the eternal beauty. She is funny and full of life; she often prods Kasturi to enjoy her teen life. Like, in the last episode she encouraged her to lie about going to college when she actually wanted to go for a party; reasoning it out that on pretext of going for a satsang and she go enjoy a movie that she's dying to watch. One needs to sometimes lie at levels only to enjoy the smaller pleasures of life," reminds Kanika. However there are multiple shades to the character, "Yes, she is the regular dadi when crisis strikes, she doesn't behave like an idiot then. The character in brief is friendly and filmy at the same time." Screen presence is a problem area today, often serials are cluttered with many actors, nobody getting the better off the screen space allotted to them except of course if you happen to be the lead. How does a character actor showcase his/her role? "Screen presence is actually a god's gift to the actor. Screen space is not having a lead role but how well you can stand out amongst other strong characters sharing the camera space with you, is to be understood to begin with. You can create it over the period of time by choosing strong characters and it will automatically follow when you are honest to the character. Surprisingly, Kanika's character sketch fits aptly to Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki's Krishna Agarwal aka (Krishna dadi). Now why is that so? Is it primarily because there isn't much space to shape a grandmother's character differently? Are these indicators of Kasturi going to be another popular show from the recycling bin of Balaji Telefilms?