Sharad Kelkar and Mauli Dave in Rock-N-Roll Family

Sharad Kelkar sounds helpless. “Will I die? I don’t know,” he says. Nahar Singh, his character in Zee TV’s Saat Phere, has contracted a brain disease. “If they kill me, so be it. I am a mazdoor.”

There are reasons for Kelkar to get worried about the continuity of a role that has been his since October 17, 2005. His wife Saloni is being pushed towards the family doctor for a “future together”, though she is putting up a valiant fight to cure Nahar. “I have given three years of my life to the show. Of course, I’ll mind if I am out,” Sharad says.

The role, says the broad-shouldered hunk, has allowed Nahar to mature. “Earlier he was too impulsive. But despite the changes I have stuck to the baseline of being a strong Rajput.” Fans of Saloni (played by Rajashree Thakur) will testify to how Nahar has stood by her through thick and thin.

Though Sharad is close to Nahar, it is the role of Rudra in Sinndoor Tere Naam Ka that is most dear to him. “Rudra had both positive and negative shades — the loving son and brother as well as the angry young man. It was a dream role. I might have acted earlier in Aakrosh, Bhabi and CID, but Sinndoor Tere Naam Ka was my first hit soap.”

His debut vehicle Aakrosh (on Doordarshan) is where he met his wife Keerti Gaekwad. “But, believe me, there was no spark between us then. We clicked months later when we met on a show.”

The two went on to feature in Nach Baliye 2 together. Sharad admits that his wife is the better dancer of the two. “Since then, she has done Saas vs Bahu (Sahara One’s dance contest) and has improved further. I am uncomfortable with choreographed dance, with all that 1-2-3-4. She has a sharp memory, she remembers the steps. I can’t.” So how did he manage so many lines as an anchor in Rock-N-Roll Family? “There was a teleprompter,” he laughs.

There is talk of Sharad playing Siraj-ud-Daulah in a Zee TV project. “Work may start in February. It is such a big show that one can’t start shooting without long preparation. It will be a historical series with three months on each character.” He has already passed the look test. “I was told that I looked regal in the Nawabi dress and pagdi.” He knows that the role has a Calcutta connection. “I have been to Burrabazar and seen the market area. Some shooting may well happen there, and in Red Fort and Agra.”

But that is in the future. For now, Sharad refuses to give up on Nahar. “Rudra fell off the cliff and came back. Who knows, something like that may happen.” But he is against a leap in the storyline. “I do not mind ageing gradually. But I can’t come back overnight as a 65-year-old.”