Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah has been airing for 16 years now and actor Gurcharan Singh has been a part of the show since its first episode. For the first few years, from 2008–2012, Gurucharan played the role of Roshan Sodhi, but when he was trying to renegotiate his contract in 2012, the actor was replaced without any information.Actually, he came to know about it when he watched the telecast with a new actor playing the character of Sodhi. In a conversation with Siddharth Kannan, Gurucharan said that he was shocked when he came to know.
He shared that he treats the cast of the show like his family and said, “Taarak Mehta is like my family because if I didn’t consider him family, I would have said a lot of things about him which I didn’t. They replaced me in 2012, I did not leave the show.”
“At that time there were some talks going on about contracts and agreements. They didn’t even told me that they were going to replace me. I was in Delhi and I was sitting with my family members and we were watching Taarak Mehta. And in that episode, Dharam paaji had a cameo for a movie promotion or something.
I said ‘Wow, Dharam paaji is here’ and in that episode, they introduced the new Sodhi. When I saw I was surprised. I was watching it with my parents and they were so surprised,” he recalled. Gurucharan said that at this point he realized that he had already been replaced.
But after some time, both the producers and the actor started receiving a lot of appreciation from the audience. “He was under a lot of pressure after replacing me. Even I had a lot of pressure from the audience. When I used to go to the gym people would say ‘Why did you leave?’ This is not fun you should go back’ and he would say this angrily. People will scold me just like you scold your family members. I said ‘It’s not up to me, it’s up to the owners.’
Gurucharan said that Jennifer Mistry, who played his wife’s character in the show, was also replaced in a similar manner. However, Gurucharan returned to the show after a year and remained a part of it till 2020. In the same interview, Gurucharan said that he is looking for work in Mumbai.
