“It’s sad but true that Aarambh had to end,” said Rajniesh Duggall (Source: Varinder Chawla)
Magnum opus drama Aarambh is all set to pull its curtain down. The Star Plus historical series will conclude on September 10, more than a month before its stipulated time. The show that recently took a leap and rechristened itself as Aarambh: Kahani Devsena Ki was originally supposed to air 36 episodes but have been cut short to 24. Talking about the same, lead actor Rajniesh Duggall, in an exclusive conversation with indianexpress.com, said, “Yes, it’s sad but true that Aarambh ka anth horaha hai. Unfortunately, the television audience is yet to accept different shows and apart from Ekta Kapoor’s Naagin and Rahul Kumar Tewary’s Mahakali, none of the limited series have worked on weekends.”
Aarambh, produced by Rose Audio Visuals Pvt Ltd, kicked off with a big star cast that included Rajniesh, south actor Karthika Nair, Bollywood veteran Tanuja and other popular television faces like Tarun Khanna, Vipul Gupta, Tej Sapru among others. Post the leap, yesteryear actor Madhoo joined the team playing a pivotal role. The show was written by Baahubali writer K. V. Vijayendra Prasad, and was expected to bring alive the same magic on the small screen. Though the makers tried their best and pumped in a lot of money, sadly the ratings never came. Interestingly, netizens have been watching the show religiously on the web but television works on numbers and Aarambh clearly did not manage to garner the required ratings.
Disappointment resonating in his voice, Rajniesh added, “It was a big story and set up but gradually the story was being changed which I had not signed up for. I guess they were trying to get better ratings but the audience is not yet ready to experiment. Yes, I am not too happy about it as a lot of time, blood, sweat, and effort have gone into it for almost one year but we need to move on. Such is life.”
As per sources, the news did dampen the spirit of the team but they are trying to give their best shot till the end. Aarambh will wrap up the shoot by next week and air its last episode on September 10. It will be tentatively replaced by Farah Khan and Ali Asgar hosted Lip Sync Battle.
