Ulka Gupta: Pressure to be perfect has been hammered into my head

From the age of seven Ulka Gupta has faced the camera and the pressures that came with it Be it Saat PheremdashSaloni Ka Safar or Jhansi Ki Rani she left a lasting impression as a child actor As an adult she had headlined various daily soaps and played pivotal roles in films including Simmba 2018 But the thirst to act is still unquenched In conversation with midday Gupta talks about her new show Main Hoon Saath Tere that highlights the plight of single mothers and why acting has made her ldquoa free birdrdquoEdited excerpts from the interviewFrom being a child actor to playing a mother the journey has been arduous How would you describe the highs and lowsIrsquove not reached the point yet where I can have my own philosophy but I have one I believe no effort ever goes in vain What you do learn and experience including rejections and failures teach you something and mould you People ask me why I am working in reverse gear doing films OTT and television However Irsquove felt like a free bird from the time I became an actor I feel thatrsquos exactly how an actor should bemdashindiscriminating to any medium or platformDo you feel TV content has become regressive or at least repetitiveI agree Thatrsquos why I have refrained from taking up something typical My filmography is diverse I have never judged a show on whether the story has been done before or not I believe whatever works for the society in terms of entertainment works Maybe that is where the audience finds their relief We love listening to old melodies and their remixes Similarly we can like watching the same story packaged differentlyIn daily soaps women are always presented as the ideal bahudaughterwoman Isnrsquot that putting too much pressure on womenThe pressure of perfectionism is definitely unfair Personally it has been hammered into my head too In television and movies women have to be tolerant always compromise and still keep giving To be giving and loving are good virtues but tolerating everything is too much But it also matters as to who our audiences are Television predominantly caters to tierII and III cities and they are culturally and socially at a certain stage We have to deliver what they like If this is the value system they hold we can still inject some nice ideas within the same story TV is also responsible for having influenced peoplersquos mindsets in a positive way Main Hoon Saath Tere is on that very trackHow does your show positively influence the audienceSingle women are not credited enough for all they do Instead they are only bothered questioned and often at the receiving end of so much hatred The show talks about her strength and the challenges she facesWhy is there a need to show the male protagonist then Why canrsquot a womanrsquos life on screen be complete without a manThe story is not trying to show that a woman is incapable without a man I have seen so many single mothers brave it out It wasnrsquot distant from me when I had to do this role Not saying that my father was entirely absent but my mom brought up three kids I know of her being a single mother taking care of all of us Main Hoon Saath Tere is a love story centred on a single mother Female and male energy can coexist and might need each other We have to be patient to one day show the LGBTQiA stories on televisionIs the audience influencing content or the other way aroundI believe it works both ways However most of the time content is determined as per the audience