Bigg Boss 14’s Shardul Pandit who entered the house as a Wild Card contestant, shared his ups and downs. Shardul started her career as a VJ and then turned into an actor. Before the coronavirus outbreak, Shardul had posted about facing a tough time which forced him to leave Mumbai. Before entering the Bigg Boss 14 house, he shared his heart gutting story with news portal Pinkvilla. He talked about his financial lows, when there was no work, his health, how he dealt with with mother’s chemotherapy, and a lot more.
Shardul said the portal: “I was a boy who was 110 kg, radio jockey in Indore when I participated in a talent show and won there. Then I went back to the radio and later acting happened. I had this confidence, to the point of being overconfident that I can do anything. That happens to people who achieve too much out of their weaknesses. I was wrong and I think life decided to teach me a lesson.”
He continued, “After doing some work, I left for Dubai. When I lived there, I was the number one radio jockey and everybody said don’t do it as the industry has changed but I said I am going to do it and I think I was working from a place of arrogance, although it was working in my favour. I did come back after years and became a lead and become a VJ, host BCL, so everyone was feeding it to me that you can do anything. And that I think was a wrong thing I did to myself. You need to be grounded and life taught me that when my show Kuldeepak got over suddenly, my money got stuck for a year and a half and I thought it will be okay but it did not get okay. Initially, you are okay for 3-4 months, but then it gets to you.”
Shardul underwent several health problems after he went on steroids for a role. “At that time, every bad thing that could have happened to me happened. I was prepping up for a web show where I was supposed to do intimate scenes, so I had to go on steroids because I was a thin boy. I went onto steroids and it went wrong and I was diagnosed with jaundice, doctors couldn’t diagnose it at the right time and then relapse happened. At the same time, I was going through a financial crunch and my mom was going through chemotherapy, everything that can go wrong, and then lockdown happened. The decision of leaving was not from the place of heartbreak but wisdom. I decided to cut down my expenses till the moment I start earning again, I started looking for jobs, I called people in production, radio, call centres as well. I spoke to apps who were paying me 10 K to make videos for a month. My mother went through a bad time too but God showed me that even though this darkness something nice can happen. Recently, two opportunities came my way, one is Bigg Boss and another is something I have signed up and can’t reveal right now”, Shardul elaborated.
When asked how he cope up with financial and emotional crisis, he said, “It is not a happy situation. I am no hero, I coped up with anxiety, I coped with tears, I went into a phase where I locked myself up. People have this perception that I have so many friends which I had but there came a point where I was too ashamed to meet anybody because people would call me to watch a movie but I was like if I spend 350 on this movie, what do I do next? And as an actor, you have to go to auditions and events looking good, or decent and I didn’t have that money. I didn’t have money to go for protein shakes. I had no money to buy my medicines, it was people like Karan Patel and Ankita Bhargava who would find ways to help me,” he expressed.