Avinash Mukherjee: Now people know me as an actor, not just as Jagya from Balika Vadhu

For the longest time, Avinash Mukherjee was called Jagya, after he played the young Jagdish in Balika Vadhu. It wasn’t easy to break away from that image, but Avinash has finally done it. “Playing the lead in Sasural Simar Ka 2 (SSK2) helped in that. Now people know me as an actor and not just as the child artiste from Balika Vadhu.”

While SSK2 helped him with his acting career, the show got a lot of unflattering comments online. Ask him about it and he replies, “The first eight to nine months of the show were great, but then my father turned into an apple, I turned into a naag and later even romanced a statue! Of course, I did all of this with great conviction. At the end of the day, what really matters is viewership.”

He adds, “In the age of Korean dramas, YouTube and OTT, I feel it is important to be part of a show, which will have the capacity to sustain viewership in the prime time slot and provide entertainment for the first 200 episodes at least.”

On his Balika Vadhu days
Avinash, who started as a child actor, shares, “After Balika Vadhu, everywhere I went, people would say, ‘Ab toh Jagya ka fame mila, bas ho gaya na. Nothing will work for you after you grow up.’ That’s when I resolved to prove them wrong and I’m happy where I have reached today. Currently, I am auditioning for OTT projects and TV shows. I want to focus on becoming a good actor before I try my luck in films.”