Veteran actor Rajendra Gupta, who is currently seen playing Jagganath Mishra in Jagannath Aur Purvi Ki Dosti Anokhi, has been part of showbiz for more than three-and-half decades. He made his debut in 1985 with the show Rajani.

Talking about how television has changed over the years, the actor says, “When I started, it was the time of Doordarshan. Along with regular TV shows, independent content was also made a lot, like 13 episodes with 13 different stories etc. Earlier, we had literature and story-based shows, where people used to work hard on dialogues. But when satellite channels came in, they started focusing on churning out more content in a day. Naturally, the quality dropped. Realism in stories has disappeared now.”

He adds, “Audiences in smaller cities don’t have many options for entertainment, so they watch TV and see whatever is shown to them. But people in the industry say hum woh banaate hain jo audience dekhna chahati hai. I think it’s a way to escape from making content which creates social awareness. With commercialization, the content and work should have got better, but instead, the quality has deteriorated.”

Gupta’s name was included in Limca Book of Records in those days for appearing in the highest number of television shows. Ask him about this and he says, “I don’t have any documentation of it, but this had happened in the 90s, when they mentioned that I had done around 40-50 roles until that time on TV. In the last 20 years, though, I have done less work.”

Currently, the veteran actor is enjoying his stint on Jagannath Aur Purvi Ki Dosti Anokhi. He says, “The USP of this show is that the story is realistic. They are touching social issues which people can relate to. It’s very difficult to find such content in these times and I’m glad that I got to be part of it. ”