Roopa Ganguly on the sets of Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo. Picture by Sudeshna Banerjee

“I’ve never stayed in Mumbai at a stretch,” says Roopa Ganguly, comfortably ensconced in her make-up room in Mumbai’s Film City. “Chhotu, yeh Kalkatta se aaye hain. Inke liye chai lao…” she calls out to a studio boy. “Ora amar khub jotno korey,” she smiles.

Roopa, after all, is the Thakurain on the sets of Zee TV’s Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo, a serial that focuses on the travails of a poor low caste girl from Bihar sold off to Roopa’s house. “For my character, everything that Thakursaab does is vedabakya. A lot happens in the house that she cannot agree with but she thinks that in his higher wisdom, Thakursaab must have a reason for such decisions. Woh bahut daree hui hai.”

What she means is clear in the next shot. Sudesh Berry thunders at his younger son who answers back, as a petrified Roopa struggles to stop the argument. She hardly has anything to say but registers her presence through sheer helplessness.

Back in the room, she asks for a minute to check mail on her laptop — and light up. Getting to speak in Bengali gets her into rewind mode. She recalls how Ravi Chopra brought her to Mumbai in 1995 and she worked for consecutive serials Kanoon, Parivartan and Virasaat. “Tokhon roga hoye gechhilam. Bhalo lagto. Tai porpor kaaj pachchhilam.” But 15-day stints in Mumbai started getting extended to 27-28 days a month. “Oto taka peye matha kharap hoye gechhilo. Tai bhablam thak, aar dorkar nei.” She returned to Calcutta after handing the producers a six-month notice. “I got married and had a son. I waited till he turned 12.”

That was when her TV comeback happened, with Karam Apna Apna and Kasturi for Balaji Telefilms in 2007. Anurag Basu also offered her his production Love Story. But she works on her own terms. “I must go home every month. Before Agle Janam... also, I have taken a break of four months.”

For Roopa, clearly, money today is not an end in itself. “I want to get into direction. I am working on two stories. Neither is difficult to understand or has a big social message. They deal with events of day-to-day life that get ignored.” When does she start? “Aagey ektu taka kore ni,” she smiles.

But that hardly means acting has become a mere money-making proposition. “I run to Lali (Ratan Rajput, the girl from Bihar playing the lead) to get my pronunciation corrected. The other day, we had a scene where I was the only one talking. My lines ran for six pages. I switched off my phone and sat with the assistant director to learn my lines. I could not sleep the night before. I am happy that even after 24 years in the industry I am so concerned about my work.”

Today she may be playing mother but she has no regrets about throwing away her chance to play heroine in Bollywood in the 1990s. A song featuring her and Sumit Saigal, Kali teri choti from the forgettable Bahaar Aane Tak, was a hit too. “I could not fit in. Bakwaas films were being made here. In one film, I did half a scene and ran away,” she giggles. Roopa refused “five-six Hindi films” after that in favour of great local offers like Padma Nodir Majhi. “Sadly, the work of such directors does not reach the rest of India.”

She is as level-headed when asked to look back at her Draupadi. “I did not have the understanding or the technical knowledge then. Hridoy diye korechhilam bole utre gechhilo. Today I can do Draupadi better but I won’t look Draupadi any more.”

The next shot is ready and she needs to leaf through the script before that. Is Roopa Ganguly happy in Mumbai, one asks on parting. “Na, bhalo nei…” is her spontaneous reply as a shadow clouds her face. Why? She struggles for a moment to wriggle out of the question. Then she relaxes into a grin: “Boddo khat-tey hoy.”

Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo airs Monday to Thursday at 9.30pm, Zee TV