Behind the Scenes of ‘Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah’

Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah holds the Guinness World Record for being the longest-running Indian daily sitcom. With close to 4,000 episodes released since it first aired in 2008, it’s one of the most successful shows in the history of Indian television and has had cameos from stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Hrithik Roshan among others. In May this year, Taarak Mehta… made news for less savoury reasons. Actor Jennifer Mistry Bansiwal — who has played the role of Mrs Roshan Sodhi for 12 out of the 15 years the show has been on air – filed a 27-page police complaint, accusing the show’s producer Asit Kumarr Modi of sexual harassment and alleging project head Sohil Ramani and executive producer Jatin Bajaj subjected her to abusive behaviour. On June 19, Powai Police registered a case, based on Bansiwal’s complaint, against Modi, Ramani and Bajaj, under sections 354 (use of criminal force on any woman with intention to outrage) and 509 (word, gesture or act to insult the modesty of a woman).

According to Bansiwal’s complaint, when the crew of Taarak Mehta… was shooting in Singapore in 2019, Asit Kumarr Modi allegedly sexually harassed Bansiwal by repeatedly propositioning her. Modi kept inviting her to his hotel room for a drink, late at night. At one point Bansiwal says Modi told her “Tumhare honth bade sundar hai, aisa lagta hai pakad ke kiss kar loon (You have beautiful lips. I feel like grabbing and kissing them)”. Bansiwal immediately brought this to the attention of her colleagues, who advised her to ignore Modi. 

Bansiwal has been candid about her experiences, choosing against anonymity and speaking up about the conditions in which she had to work. She’s not the only one. Actor Monika Bhadoriya, who played the role of Bawri in Taarak Mehta… between 2013 and 2019, has also spoken to the media, alleging harassment by Modi and Ramani. Both women spoke to Film Companion about the toxic work environment in one of Indian television’s most popular and longest-running shows. The makers of Taarak Mehta… did not respond to multiple interview requests from Film Companion. After Bansiwal’s claims were reported in other media, the makers reportedly denied the allegations and instead accused her of being “unprofessional” and “abusive” on sets. Modi was quoted by the wire service ANI saying, "We will take legal action as she is trying to defame me and the show both. Since we terminated her services, she is making these baseless allegations." The other effect of Bansiwal’s complaint was that seeing her speak out impelled Bhadoriya to talk openly about her own experience of working on Taarak Mehta….  

Bansiwal and Bhadoriya might be the only ones to have gone on record about their experiences, but over the years, other cast members like Shailesh Lodha (playing Taarak Mehta), Neha Mehta (playing Anjali Mehta) and Gurucharan Singh (playing Roshan Singh Sodhi) have also had public fall-outs with the makers of Taarak Mehta…. All of them have hinted at ill-treatment at the hands of the production team. Lodha sued the producers over unpaid dues in 2022. Mehta spoke to The Times of India about the need for “discipline and decorum” on set and said the makers hadn’t cleared her dues even two years after her departure from the show in 2020. According to an article in the Indian Express, the official response to Mehta was that the production team had been trying to get in touch with her to complete certain “exit formalities” after which her dues could be settled. The counter-allegation was also that Mehta did not reply to “multiple emails” and instead chose to make “false accusations” in the media. 

‘Don’t you dare start a union on my set’

Indian television is notorious for its terrible working conditions, with producers improving conditions only when backed to a corner. Actor Sushant Singh once described it as “jungle raj” and in an article from 2019, actors told India Today that shooting for 17-18 hours a day was normal. “My first day of shoot was 22-23 hours long,” Vikkas Manaktala, one of the leads of the show Khoob Ladi Mardani: Jhansi Ki Rani, told India Today. The popularity of these shows has not served to make the ordeals of those working on them more visible. It’s worth wondering if the media coverage would be as listless if a leading film star made allegations similar to those made by Bansiwal and Bhadoriya. Malav Rajda, who is one of the directors of Taarak Mehta…, agreed that the reaction to Bansiwal and Bhadoriya’s revelations has been muted. “I don't know the facts, so I would like the media to dig deeper and find out. I guess film stars are more important than TV actors,” Rajda said, commenting on the media coverage of Bansiwal’s allegations.  

The two actors’ experiences in Taarak Mehta… appear to be traumatic even by the standards set by the television industry. Bansiwal moved to Mumbai in 2004 to pursue a career in acting, but it wasn’t until 2008 that she had her breakout moment thanks to Taarak Mehta… In 2010, she recounts having her first showdown with producer Asit Kumarr Modi when she spoke up on behalf of a colleague, who started crying after Ramani spoke rudely to her. When Modi heard Bansiwal was protesting Ramani’s abusive language on set, Bansiwal claims she was shut down by Modi. “Don’t you dare start a union on my set,” Bansiwal claims to have been told by Modi. Upset, she left the set and switched off her phone, following which both Ramani and Modi tried frantically to reach her. “After some time, Ramani found me and told me Mr Modi wanted to talk to me. Ultimately Mr Modi apologised with a one-word text message: ‘Sorry’, and senior actors advised me to not quit the show over a ‘trivial’ thing. So, I let it pass,” Bansiwal told Film Companion.

‘I felt trapped…’

Bhadoriya joined the show in 2013 and claims she was promised her remuneration would be increased after six months, but this didn’t happen. At the beginning, she was instructed by showrunners to lose 10 kilograms in 20 days, when she was new on the show. “No professional experts were overseeing this, there was no mention of a trainer or a dietician. I was simply told to ‘get it done’. Being new, I obviously didn’t want to inconvenience too many people, so I started to google diets,” said Bhadoriya. By the end of those 20 days, she began to feel seriously unwell, her sight was affected and she had a serious vitamin deficiency. At this point, Bhadoriya was told “it was fine” if she didn’t lose the weight.

About 18 months after joining the show, Bhadoriya claims she confronted Modi in his office and demanded the promised increase in her remuneration. He agreed, but only to a marginal increase (it didn’t match what she says she was initially promised). As per Bhadoriya, Modi and Ramani would also not let her take up any other work outside of Taarak Mehta… despite not paying her an MG (money guarantee) – something most producers pay actors when they are blocking their time exclusively for one project (as opposed to paying actors on a per-day basis. Usually actors opt for whichever is the higher amount).

“I felt trapped by them because they weren’t paying me what they promised me, they weren’t letting me work elsewhere, and they were also not letting me quit the show,” Bhadoriya told Film Companion. In 2018, when she protested her situation by saying she didn’t want to do the show anymore, Modi agreed to pay her the MG. Accepting this turned out to be one of the worst decisions for her on the show.

The same year that Bhadoriya joined Taarak Mehta, Bansiwal claims she was fired after the showrunners found out she was pregnant. “At the time Gurucharan Singh – who played my on-screen husband on the show – quit the show. So, while they were about to recast his character, I was given five days’ notice that I was going to be replaced. I wanted to work, and I told them we could work our way around it. But Asitji told me that the show was meant for ‘family audience’ – and with a new man taking over the show, seeing me pregnant might irk some of the viewers. To be honest, I couldn’t believe my ears,” said Bansiwal. After being replaced by actor Dilkhush Reporter in the role of Roshan Sodhi, Bansiwal would be called back to reprise the role in 2016 (Reporter quit the show).

In a separate incident in early 2013, Bansiwal was called back to work just four days after her father expired in 2013. “Asit ji told me that there was an important Republic Day shot, and I was needed. We shot for two days (on January 21 and 22) after I returned amidst a lot of difficulty, given that my family needed me around then,” recalled Bansiwal. After those two days, Bansiwal wasn’t called to work for 12 days. 

‘Your time is ours’

Working on Taarak Mehta…  meant putting everything else as low priority. Bansiwal recalled an incident in 2018, when she needed to book an appointment for her daughter’s passport application. She tried contacting both Modi and Ramani over three hours — to ask what time would be convenient for the appointment, given the shooting schedule — but they were unavailable. Ultimately, Ramani called her back and when Bansiwal told him she may need a few hours in the coming week to accompany her daughter for the passport appointment, he allegedly reacted angrily. “He started screaming ‘How dare you book these things without prior intimation?’ I tried to explain to him that I’d been trying to reach him for over three hours, and only then did I go ahead and book the appointment,” said Bansiwal. “It’s only a couple of hours, I’d be on set after that. But he kept screaming at me. I think he made this about his ego.”

After the incident in Singapore in 2019, when Bansiwal claims Modi propositioned her, the actor finally reached her breaking point on March 7 this year. Bansiwal had previously requested the makers to be allowed to leave by 10 am on that day, to attend a family Holi function from 11 am to 1pm. She had therefore reached the set at 7 am that day and she’d been told hers would be the first shot. However, things changed on set. When she was told by Ramani and Bajaj to stay back, she refused. When she tried to leave, Ramani and Bajaj allegedly tried to physically restrain her from leaving the set. Bansiwal says Bajaj stood behind her car, refusing to let her reverse, and Ramani forcibly opened the door of her car and screamed at her. This was when she decided to sever all ties with the crew of Taarak Mehta…, even if this meant not getting her dues of over three months.

Bhadoriya’s experiences were arguably worse. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2018, Bhadoriya would stay with her in the hospital during the nights. The actor said she was instructed to show up on set only an hour before her call-time. “Usually, call times are given to actors at least the day before, if not a week before,” she said. Frequently, once she reached the set, Bhadoriya would be kept waiting. “When I would ask them why they had called me if there was no shooting to be done, they would say ‘We pay you MG, so your time is ours.’ I would shoot back saying, ‘So, are you taking your revenge on me now?’” Bhadoriya recalled.  

Bhadoriya lost her mother in 2019, after which she moved back home to Madhya Pradesh. “Production people started calling me and when I didn’t pick up, they called my brother. He told them that they shouldn’t force me during such a time. But they kept persisting.” She returned to set in a few weeks, but she couldn’t do justice to her part. “I was in no position to act, they kept forcing me and now they were also upset about how I was spoiling their show,” she said. It was around this time that Bhadoriya said she thought about killing herself or inflicting harm on herself. She quit the show in late 2019, but for a year afterwards, Bhadoriya wasn’t paid her dues from the last three months of work on the show. When she finally threatened to approach the Cine and TV Artistes' Association (CINTAA), Modi and Ramani responded to her messages. She was called to the office, handed a cheque for her dues, and made to sign a paper that stated she wouldn’t disclose anything to the media. 

Director Malav Rajda – who has worked with both Bansiwal and Bhadoriya, and directed over 3,500 episodes of Taarak Mehta… — said he couldn’t comment on the claims of the actors and according to him, while there were occasional tense moments, he doesn’t remember either Modi or Ramani being verbally abusive on sets. However, he also vouched for Bansiwal and Bhadoriya, saying they were “sweet” people and were not unprofessional or abusive as Modi has claimed in his response to the allegations made by the two actors.

At the time of writing this article, no arrests had been made in this case and the investigation into Bansiwal’s allegations is underway, according to Powai Police. Just before this article was to be published, we did get a response from project head Sohil Ramani: “Will talk to you when  [the] right time come[s].”