Demand for 8-hour shifts just ‘chochle’: Veteran actor says stayed in insect-infested rooms, had no beds to sleep on

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He added, “For example, one has to deliver 22-25 mins of content for daily soaps. Now amidst all that, agar aap yeh chochle paalte rahege (if you’ll keep worrying about these things) that ‘I will work for 8 hours or 5 hours’, then how will the work get finished? If you entered this race, then you have to run according to it. If you can’t accept that, then go to a 9-5 job and stay happy there. No one has forced you to be here. It’s better to sleep tired than to sleep frustrated.”

Chawla argued that actors are in fact doing much better these days compared to the era in which he was starting out. He said, “Things for actors have got so much better now. Everyone has their vanity and their entourages. Women used to change out in the open and behind trees during our time. There were no air-conditioned makeup rooms or floors. People like Amitabh Bachchan would be sitting wearing their full costume under the sun. Nowadays people go to their vanity if they don’t have their shot.”

To prove his point, he gave an example and said, “Once a supervising producer came to me while I was working on Saas Bina Sasural. He told me, ‘Sir, we never hear a complaint about you. You never say anything.’ I told him, ‘What should I complain about? When I used to go for theatre shows, we would sleep in rooms filled with insects. They used to give us durees (rug) to sleep on. You guys have given me a vanity van, fruits, and a bedsheet with my name on it — what should I complain about?'”

Deepika’s initial comments

When Deepika exited director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s film, Spirit, much speculation rose up, suggesting that the actor had made certain demands to the producers. One of these demands was an 8-hour workday, which opened up a separate can of worms. During an interview with Brut India, Deepika argued that male actors have been working these timings for years, and the only reason she is being highlighted by the media is because she’s a woman.

Other female actors, such as Madhuri Dixit and Rani Mukherjee, also stepped into the debate and shared their experience of balancing motherhood and their acting careers. After winning a National Award for her role in Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, Rani told ANI, “I would like to take you back to my time when I did Hichki because I did the film when my daughter Adira was 14 months old, and I was still breastfeeding her. I had to pump the milk and go in the morning. I have also done it where I have worked a certain number of hours if the producers are okay with it. If not, you don’t do the film. It’s also a choice. Nobody is forcing anything on anybody.”

Talking to the same platform, Madhuri said, “The thing is that when we did ‘Mrs Deshpande’, we were working 12-hour shifts every day, like maybe more sometimes. So, I think to each his own. I’m a workaholic. So for me, maybe it’s different, but if a woman has that power and can say, ‘Okay, I want to work these many hours,’ then that’s her (Deepika’s) prerogative, and that’s her life, and that’s how she wants to do it. Then more power to her.”