With International Friendship Day just around the corner, Jhumma Mitra, who plays Padma in Prateek Sharma and Parth Shah’s Studio LSD’s Pyaar Ka Pehla Adhyaya: Shiv Shakti, believes true friends are very rare these days.
She said, “With the lack of time and our ever-rising busy schedules, having a true friend nowadays is a blessing; it is what keeps us grounded and connected to reality, be it on screen or off screen. Friends are very important.” She stressed that, for her, honesty is very important in friendship. She added, “As an actor, the whole world praises you and gives you a sense of superiority, but a friend is someone who should be honest enough to point out your good and bad qualities rather than creating a fake cocoon of only praise; he or she should keep your ego in check and make you humble.” Jhumma has two best friends: Roma Sinha, my childhood friend, and Niveen Ramani, my bestie from the entertainment world, and she shares everything with them. She said that there are times that she doesn’t speak to her childhood bestie for months because of her busy schedules, but at the end of the day, she knows they are there for each other no matter what. She added, “Thanks to social media and all the messaging apps that allow video calling, keeping in touch is not very difficult, but being truthful rather than making excuses for not keeping in touch helps maintain a healthy friendship.” In her ongoing show, she made friends with Parineeta Borthakur, who was seen as Mandira in the show. “Our friendship was very evidently seen in our scenes too, and we have had many fans compliment our onscreen Jodi, so a great friend on set always makes work more fun, and the outcome is amazing too,” she said.
She also pointed out that the characters’s friendships in the show are obviously fabricated by the writers. She said, “On screen, Padma is a selfish, self-centered person who only makes friends to get something out of the other person. Except for Mandira, who has become a very dear friend, and I couldn’t stop my tears on her last day of shooting. But in reality, Jhumma is nowhere close to Padma in her nature. If I make friends, it’s for life, and I’m very choosy about making friends.”
How has friendship contributed to your personal and professional growth? “Personally, my friends don’t treat me special; they don’t praise me for unnecessary things; they remind me of my roots; they keep me grounded and humble. Professionally, I think friends on set or from the fraternity once in a while help in getting a new project if I fit in; they might help with a dialogue or a phrase or grammar in my case,” Jhumma added.
