Exclusive: Annapurna Vitthal accuses actors Sunil Barve, Nandita Patkar and Kishori Ambiye for allegedly mocking her, says "they have a lobby and were provoking me for suicide"

Veteran actress Annapurna Vitthal Bhairi, who played Aai's character (Surya's mother) in the Marathi TV show Sahakutumb Sahaparivar, recently levied serious allegations on the show's director and her co-artists for mentally torturing her. In an exclusive chat with ETimes TV, Annapurna made more shocking allegations on the show's star cast and director and further said that the show had a lobby. Annapurna also said that the actors of the show and the director allegedly mocked her on the sets and provoked her to commit suicide.

- Interview by Vaishnavi Gavankar

Annapurna also slammed the lead actress of Sahakutumb Sahaparivar, Nandita Patkar, and said, "Nandita was behaving nicely with me earlier, but I don't know what happened later. She would call me for lunch during the break, but later she changed her attitude. She was so unhygienic on the set. There are many incidents that show how unhygienic that woman is. One day the bathroom was not cleaned, so I asked her to clean it because she had used it, but she said, "I won't do it, if you want to clean it, you clean it. It's not my duty". This should not be the attitude of an actress. We are women, and we should know why hygiene is so important for us. I am sharing these incidents with everyone so that people would know how these actors are in real life. I am a south Indian, and they both tried to demean me. There was a sequence where we were discussing children and Nandita and Sunil taunted me. Sunil was telling Nandita, "Nandu, these south Indians put so much Kajal in their children's eyes" Replying to it, Nandita told him, "'Haa na they put the entire Kajal bottle into their children's eyes." Later, they started demeaning me by the Telugu language. I told them not to do so. I have heard a lot of taunts on the set from Nandita Patkar and Sunil Barve.

Talking about Sunil Barve, Annapurna said, "He made fun of me on the set. He was the one who asked the director to cut my dialogues from the scripts. When I would read my dialogues, he would make fun of me and my character. In my character, I was handicapped, and I had to deliver a dialogue in a high-pitched voice. I don't know suddenly, Sunil started laughing hard when I was performing, claiming he heard some different tone. I felt he disrespected the role I was playing. It is not right to laugh at someone who is playing a handicapped on-screen. We are all actors, and we should respect each other.

Kishori Ambiye is such a senior actress in the industry, and I did not expect such behavior from her. Earlier, only Nandita Patkar and I were sharing a room on the set, and later, Kishori joined us. Kishori came inside the room for the first time, looked at me, and said, "ye room junior artists ko bhi diya hai kya?" (Has this room been allocated to junior artists as well). She also taunted me many times and mocked me. I have been in the industry since the last 25 years and have worked with many renowned directors and producers but never faced such treatment from anybody. Whenever a new artist comes on the set, I give my chair to them and ask them to sit. This is not the way we should treat actors. Later, Kishori asked me why I don't work in the Hindi industry, and I told her I do get many good projects in Hindi too with double the payment, but I liked the role and felt it was a challenging role that is why I decided to be in Marathi. Later, she told me, 'you have to work in the Hindi industry, why are you here."

One day I had a shot, but I wasn't well. So I had to put a lot of effort while performing the scene. I stopped suddenly in between the shots, and the director asked me-- why did you stop? Who made you an actress? You don't know anything about acting. I will tell the channel to remove you from the show. Whenever my shot would get ready, Bharat would call me and say, "Wo budhiya ko bulao." I was so depressed and shaken by the treatment. I played the role of a mother in Sahakutumb Sahaparivar, but the cast and makers disrespected me and did not treat me like a mother. They have caused me pain. They have made a mother cry. Bharat always harassed in front of the unit.

Sahakutumb Sahaparivar show is all about family and respecting our family members, and treating them nicely. But off-screen, there is an entirely different scenario. Nobody respects a senior actress on the set. Off-screen, nobody respects a woman who is playing the role of a grandmother, and on-screen, they show how we should treat our grannies well. This is something that should stop. The show Sahakutumb Sahaparivar has a lobby. I went into depression. I started having heart problem. These few people from the show were provoking me to commit suicide. I am glad that I left the show."

- Interview by Vaishnavi Gavankar