Dilip Joshi shares his ‘Balika Vadhu type’ love story: ‘Got engaged when my wife was 14, I was 18’

“We got engaged very early, my wife (Jaymala Joshi) was fourteen and I was eighteen, so it was like an arranged engagement. It’s a Balika Vadhy type story. And when she turned eighteen and I turned twenty- two we were married. I had studied in an all boys’ school, so I used to be very scared of talking to girls, I didn’t know how to talk (to girls). It is only after I got into drama and acting that I gained the confidence to talk,” he said.

Dilip also spoke about his hectic work schedule and said that with six episodes in a week, he hardly gets any time for himself or his family.

He said, “While shooting for serials we have a very tight schedule. We shoot for twelve hours a day, there is no scope to do anything after that. Last three-four days, we’ve been shooting and telecasting the next day, some days are like that, it gets very cut-to-cut. Now the show’s become Monday to Saturday, so there are six episodes, normally it takes one-and-a-half-day shoot a single episode. Initially, we had to shoot five episodes per week, so twenty episodes in a month, so if you multiply one-and-a-half days by twenty then it is thirty days. So, by default you have to shoot for thirty days.”

Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah is the longest running television show on Indian television.