Dalip Tahil says Ramesh Sippy’s Buniyaad changed his life: ‘My mom used to watch show and start crying’

Veteran actor Dalip Tahil opened up on how the television show Buniyaad ‘changed’ his life; he termed it a ‘game changer’. In a new interview, Dalip took a trip down memory lane, and recalled how his mother would watch the show, and cry, as it had similarities with their own lives. He also spoke about how during his initial acting days, he wanted to quit the profession. The actor said that though he never wanted to give up, at times he ‘questioned the kind of work’ he did. (Also Read | Dalip Tahil: Mahesh Babu’s Bollywood comment had a lot to do with work ethics)

Buniyaad, directed by Ramesh Sippy and Jyoti, was first aired in 1986 on the DD National. The story, written by Manohar Shyam Joshi, was about India’s partition in 1947. The story focusses on life in India between 1916-1978. Apart from Dalip, Buniyaad also featured Alok Nath, Anita Kanwar, Sudhir Pandey, Soni Razdan, Kanwaljit Singh, Vijayendra Ghatge and Kiran Juneja, among many others.

In an interview with Times of India, Dalip said, “After Shaan and Shakti, in which I played a negative role, came Buniyaad. Those days I was in Mr Ramesh Sippy’s camp like his resident actor. He gave me Buniyaad and that changed my life. That is the power of TV. My mother used to watch the show and start crying, because that’s our story as well, from Sindh. I played a father in Buniyaad and I didn’t think twice. It was such a good narration that I didn’t even think of my role and was amazed by the subject. I was playing a father of two young kids and it didn’t bother me at all.”

When asked if he ever wanted to quit, Dalip said, “Never! There were several junctures in my film career where I questioned the kind of work that I was doing. But by then, it was a kind of Catch-22 situation for me. Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak worked for me, Buniyaad was a game changer. Then came the middle 30s when everybody was doing three shifts. The producers will come to you and if you tell them that you have time, they won’t sign you! It was so mad. If you told a producer, ‘ Mere paas time hai, aap yeh date le lijiye (I have time, you can block these dates)’, they would walk out of the door and say ‘ Yeh toh faltu baitha hua hai (He’s sitting idle)’.”

Dalip was recently seen in Toolsidas Junior, a sports drama directed by Mridul Mahendra. The film also features Sanjay Dutt, Rajiv Kapoor, and Varun Buddhadev. It is produced by Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar, Ashutosh Gowariker and Sunita Gowariker under the banner of Ashutosh Gowariker Productions and T-Series films.