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Rupali Ganguly is Always on the Move
With 'Anupamaa,' the actor has reinvented herself in an industry that rarely offers a second act — especially to women.
Rupali Ganguly doesn’t stop moving. She takes a quick bite, adjusts her phone, answers a question about how much mehndi, how much colour — “Less golden, always less golden” — before slipping seamlessly back into thought, finishing a sentence like she never really left it. This, she will tell you, is her life. On the morning of the interview, she dropped her son off at his tuition class, squeezed in a dentist appointment, and now, between getting her hair set and deciding what to wear for a shoot, she is reflecting on how she keeps herself in motion, in her career and in life.
For the daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Anil Ganguly, cinema was an inescapable presence in her childhood. While other kids spent their vacations frolicking on beaches or sightseeing abroad, Ganguly and her brother, Vijay, were hauled to Kolkata and often found themselves in the quiet, dimly lit editing studio, absorbing the rhythm of storytelling through the spools of film their father worked on. “Most of our vacation time was spent at Waman [P. Bhonsle] guru’s editing studio, learning the craft. I was quite lazy, but my brother was exceptionally good at it,” she says. Yet, for all the exposure, acting wasn’t an obvious calling. Life had a way of making choices for her.
A financial crisis struck after one of her father’s films flopped, and as the eldest child, she stepped up. The journey began with a necessity. She took up odd jobs, even working in a boutique in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. Acting, when it came, was accidental — a last-minute replacement in her father’s Bengali film Balidan (1990). “The lead actress, who was initially cast for Balidan, became an overnight sensation and was no longer available. That’s when my mother, who was very keen that I start acting, pushed me into it,” she says. At 13, she found herself in front of the camera, bewildered but open to the experience.
The film became a hit, and suddenly, she was a known face. The attention was thrilling, but the industry wasn’t always kind. A failed film with Govinda (Do Aankhen Barah Hath, 1997) and the circumstances of her father’s project Angaara — in which she found herself donning costumes meant for someone else — were sobering experiences. “Mithun [Chakraborty] uncle was much older, and he used to scold me a lot. On one side, my father [who was the director] was scolding me, and on the other, Mithun uncle was correcting me,” she says. But in the midst of it all, she was learning to face the camera, to craft an expression, to build a presence. These lessons, this osmosis would shape the performer she went on to become.
Her father had once dreamed of becoming a classical singer, and he wished for her to follow the same path. But singing required a dedication Ganguly knew she didn’t possess. Instead, she let fate guide her, never strategising her next step, never overanalysing the direction of her career.
Television found her in the early 2000s, and in it, she found a playground for her restless soul. Yet, despite a flourishing career, she walked away — more than once. “I took a break after Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin and Sukanya [because] I didn’t want to do just positive roles anymore. I was fed up with playing a goody-two-shoes. I wanted to do something badass — a strong negative role — but people didn’t see me that way. Shakal se shayad bechaari type lagti hoon (Maybe I look like the helpless type),” she says, laughing. She wasn’t getting what she was looking for, so she stopped looking. She went out and pursued a diploma in hotel management at the Institute of Hotel Management in Mumbai, waitressed as part of her training, and took up minor ads and modelling assignments that came her way. “The thing is, I can sit with a toothbrush and clean tiles just to keep myself occupied. But I simply cannot sit still — I don’t know how to relax.”
She found her “badass” role in the 2002 TV series Sanjivani: A Medical Boon, playing Dr. Simran Chopra — who, if degrees were handed out for devious reaction shots, would have graduated top of her class. But Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is what truly set her apart. “Aatish Kapadia cast me as Monisha because he thought what I was doing in Sanjivani could easily be categorised as comedy,” she says, delighting in the sheer absurdity of it. As Monisha, she was unfiltered, uninhibited, and unforgettable. “I am Monisha only. I’m exactly like her,” she says. The character made her a household name, but fame was never her objective. “We all get to live just one life,” she reflects, “but as an actor, I get to live multiple [lives].”
In 2013, however, her ambitions became singular: she wanted to be a mother. When her son, Rudransh, was born, she willingly placed acting on the back burner. “I just wanted to be a mother. I didn’t want to do anything else. If you ask me about ambition in life, my ambition was to have lots of children, be married, and just be a mother.... Sorry if I sound regressive to you,” she says.
Seven years passed before Rajan Shahi called with Anupamaa. “Have you grown up?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied, “I have a child now, so I have grown up.”
Taking on Anupamaa wasn’t a casual decision. The television industry had changed: Shoots were longer, breaks were fewer, and the pressure was immense. But something about this role felt like home. It was more than just another show; it was a character that let her bring her own experiences, her own struggles, and her own triumphs to the screen. “It was my maasi’s (aunt’s) story,” she says. A role that would resonate with millions of women in the country and make her one of the highest-paid actors on television, the face of the most-watched show in the country.
But she doesn’t let it consume her. “I’m on set for 23 or 24 days a month, fully dedicated to the show. You can burn out very quickly,” she says. She takes vacations — short ones, two or three days at a time. She ensures her time with her son is uninterrupted. And she keeps herself grounded even as adoration pours in, as TRPs climb, as endorsements flood her inbox. She remains acutely aware of the fickle nature of success. “Nothing lasts forever,” she says, neither the praise nor the scrutiny. “Every actor craves recognition. When someone comes up for a picture, I want to make that moment memorable for them. But if I start taking it all too seriously — if I let myself become ‘Rupali Ganguly, the persona’ instead of ‘Rupali Ganguly, the actor’ — I’ll lose my way. At the end of the day, I’m just a simple, middle-class girl,” she says. She tries her best to acknowledge the love she receives — reposting edits, responding to messages, making every picture with a fan count.
But Ganguly is not chasing titles. She does not negotiate salaries. She simply trusts. Trusts in her team, in her craft, in the faith that people have placed in her. “I feel very small if I take even 1 per cent of the credit,” she says. “This isn’t just me. It’s the people around me who have made this happen.” “Many actors are fortunate if they get one role of a lifetime,” she says. “I have got two. God has been kind, and I am grateful.”
There is Monisha Sarabhai, the lovable, middle-class rebel who turned haggling into an art form. Then, there is Anupamaa, the woman every Indian mother, aunt, and grandmother sees a part of herself in. That transition, from comedy to drama, from the Monisha who inspired a generation’s memes to the Anupamaa who inspires real-life change, was not inevitable. “Arvind Vaidyaji, who plays Madhusudan kaka in Sarabhai, plays my father-in-law in Anupamaa,” she says. “He told me, ‘I didn’t think you were the right fit for this role.’ It wasn’t until we started shooting that he said, ‘Now I see it.’ "If Sarabhai vs Sarabhai gave her a character that came naturally to her, Anupamaa was an aspiration. “The grain of Anupamaa has always been my father’s kind of film. It has always been about this middle-class woman finding herself,” she explains. In a way, she had already seen Anupamaa’s journey up close. “I had seen [my aunt’s] life, her struggles, in close quarters. I just had to tap into my papa’s voice, the way I had learned how to act from him.”
But it wasn’t easy. When she returned to television after six and a half years, she wasn’t sure the industry would accept her again. “I didn’t know if the kind of acting I did would work today. It’s all about underplaying now, about subtlety. OTT acting is different, television acting is different, film acting is different.” She wasn’t sure she could keep up. “I started shooting on 25 February, and the show telecast on 13 July. That’s when I saw the first episode and I thought, Bas, jo bhi hai, (Whatever it takes) I have to put 200 per cent into making this work.”It is a rare thing to reinvent yourself so completely that an audience forgets they ever saw you differently. But Ganguly has done it. Sarabhai vs Sarabhai had its audience. First, the generation that watched it as it was being telecast, and then, a second wave of fans who found it years later and declared it iconic. Monisha was imprinted in pop culture. And yet, when Anupamaa aired, there was no jarring transition. The audience embraced her instantly.
How did she do it?
“I think it’s because I am the woman they see every day,” she says. “They see Anupamaa in their mothers, their chachis, their maasis. And because of that, I have a responsibility.”
That responsibility is more than just playing a character convincingly. It is real. Women come up to her with their problems, asking her for advice, crying in her arms. She listens, she says, because she cannot just walk away. “How can I? These women have been holding these stories inside them for years, and Anupamaa has given them the courage to speak. I cannot betray that.” This responsibility is why she hesitates to step away. “I won’t take up something completely alien to how people see me right now,” she says. “Even if the actor in me craves it, I know I have a duty to the people who have invested their emotions in me.” There is more than just an audience at stake. “This one show — it is the livelihood of 200-plus people. Families depend on it. People in the crew have bought houses, started families in the past five years. This kind of stability is rare in our line of work.”
And yet, the actor in her wonders about the alternative. “I would love to do something different,” she admits. “When I was doing Sanjivani, I only got offers for negative roles. Before that, not a single one. Then, Aatish Kapadia saw the fun side of me and made me Monisha. I hope there will be someone else who will see me differently again.” But for now, she is here, deeply embedded in Anupamaa’s world, holding onto the part of herself that makes her who she is. “There is this innocence,” she muses. “Ratna Pathakji calls it stupidity, Rajanji and my husband call it innocence. It is what works for Monisha and for Anupamaa.” She protects it, she says, because she has seen what happens when an actor loses it. “The minute you think you know everything, the minute you lose that purity, you become undesirable.”
The one thing she has taken from Anupamaa? “Self-love,” she says without hesitation. “After my son was born, I was 83 kilos. And actors, no matter what, are vain people. Someone said I looked like an ‘aunty’.” She shrugs. “We need to not be so judgemental. We need to be kind to people. That is what I have learned.”
And what has she given to Anupamaa? “My all, yaar,” she says. “I have given her my 100 per cent.”
To give your all, day in and day out, is grit. It’s labour. It’s worthy of applause. But Rupali Ganguly has no patience for praise — before the interview is over, she’s already onto the next thing. “Which scene?” she asks, mid-motion, forever in forward gear. It is how she has stayed ahead, how she has transformed herself again and again, how she has remained, for years, exactly where she belongs: right on top.
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