Karan Wahi: TV wants better shows, web wants more episodes

With age and experience comes maturity Gone is the Karan Wahi who enjoyed playing the boynextdoor and favoured the romcom genre With SonyLIVrsquos Raisinghani vs Raisinghani the actor has chosen to play a flawed ruthless lawyer opposite Jennifer Winget In conversation with midday Wahi opens up about the new medium of TVplus what he loved about his character and his evolving equation with his Dill Mill Gayye costar WingetEdited excerpts from the interviewDid the fact that the show is TVplus a hybrid of TV and OTT convince you to take it upNot really It does come across as a television show because it drops every day But scriptwise or in terms of the way wersquove shot it there is nothing television about it It has a web seriesrsquo treatment It is a new approach that the platform is trying they feel there is an instant need for something like this that caters to both the TV and OTT audience The television audience keeps asking for better shows while the web audience keeps asking for more episodesHow many episodes does Raisinghani vs Raisinghani haveThere is a cap on the number of episodes but the platform is not keen on revealing the exact number of episodes Wersquove been shooting for the past four monthsWahi and Jennifer Winget in Raisinghani vs RaisinghaniConsidering itrsquos a TVplus offering is selfcensorship practisedIn web shows especially in terms of abusive content I feel we tend to go overboard We have become complacent assuming that everyone talks like that nowadays But in real life most people donrsquot use expletives in their conversations My last show Channa Mereya didnrsquot have abusive language Raisinghani vs Raisinghani is realistic and they are keeping a check on it in order to cater to both audiencesWhat kind of cases will be tackled in the seriesSome cases have been taken from real lives but at the end of the day we cannot name them The primary aspect in most legal dramas is that we see cases fought in the court However in real life so many cases are not really fought in the court instead they are worked upon in law firms That is where wersquove showcased the interpersonal dynamics Cases are a good way to take the narrative forwardDoes the question of ethics come into play while tackling casesWersquove shown that there are two kinds of lawyersmdashone who will do anything to win Virat has come with the single goal of victory On the other hand there is Anushka Wingetrsquos character who believes that you donrsquot have to be ruthless to win While Virat considers the absence of ruthlessness as a weakness Anushka considers that as her strength The show is beautifully written There are flashbacks from when my character was in his 20s and they show why he became the wayhe didDo you identify with ViratWhen I had first read the script I felt I was nothing like Virat But after playing him for the last four months I feel I have often done things that he would do I feel every man has a Virat in him some men may not be as egoistic as he is For instance a man talks to three women at a time but if his girlfriend does that he gets livid That is the mentality of so many people What I loved about Virat is that he is real and flawed You will hate him for what he does but you will sympathise with himHow has your chemistry with Jennifer evolved after 14 yearsWersquove known each other for more than 14 years The last time I worked with Jennifer was on Dill Mill Gayye it was only my third TV show and I was all of 24 years This time our friendship and experience reflected on camera It is easier when you work with friends For the world Jen and I could be stars but wersquove seen our journeys closely and it doesnrsquot change anything for the two of us