Rinku Karmakar makes a bald move on television

Given the traditional set up in Indian television, going bald can be seen as an outrageous move for an actress. The very thought of it would, in fact, make most of them cringe. But not Rinku Karmakar, better known as Kamla tai from Ye Vaada Raha. When the makers sat down with her to brainstorm on how to boost the ratings on the show, the actress, without batting an eyelid, suggested, “Let us make Kamla tai bald.” Rinku was sure she wanted to do it and the big task was, in fact, convincing her real life husband actor Kiran Karmarkar.

“I wanted to do something different and challenging. I wanted to see how far I could go as an actress for the show. So I decided to go bald. The decision shocked everyone. After discussing it with the creative team, we successfully incorporated it in the sequence and the date was set for the feat. Now the challenge was to convince my husband Kiran, as he had specifically warned me ‘not to go bald’ when I had shared the idea with him,” says Rinku. “So the moment I reached home after finalising the date, I told him, ‘you also have gone bald at times in your shows when the character demanded it, and I have put up with that. So now it’s your turn to accept this change in me’,” she adds with a smile.

The sequence was shot yesterday on the sets making her the first actress on Indian television to go bald. The new look had everyone staring in disbelief. And what does she think, we ask. “I think I look very cute without hair. The wig was anyway giving me scalp trouble, so I have a sense of relief now. To be honest, Kamla tai is a huge character on television. So it’s a conscious effort to keep doing something bigger and better to boost the ratings. The only time the change hit me was when my little son refused to hug me saying ‘ladkiya bald nahi hoti’,” she says.