Gunjan and Sanaya

I was rather amused to read a post on restoring MJHT's lost charm, where in the character discussion, it said, 'Gunjan was shy and scared, now she's Sanaya'.
The topic maker apparently was unhappy with this evolution, but I wonder if she realised what a compliment she paid Sanaya's acting!

Of all the four lead characters, Gunjan's is the one which is the furthest from the personality of the actress who plays it. Sanaya even said in her introductory interview that she is not even 1% like Gunjan. And it has been over a year since she has been playing this character, only now, when Gunjan has developed a different personality, become more confident, has Sanaya allowed even a shadow of her real personality to show on screen. Speaks volumes for her acting abilities, especially given the conditions under which daily soap stars work, not enough time for rehearsals, re-takes etc. Sanaya has managed to subdue her own self completely and become Gunjan, be it dialogue delivery, body language, way of smiling, laughing, everything ... NONE of the other actors have had such a tough act to do. Not Arjun, not Rati and not Mohit - although the character he plays is also not close to what he is in real life, but then he has always been a little weak in comparison - he could never really carry off the stud personality, because he isn't like that in real life. Sanaya carried off the shy, timid Gunjan personality perfectly right from the start, to the point that I got so irritated by her character that I didn't even watch MJHT for the longest time.

Take her voice and her dialogue delivery - Sanaya's real life voice is loud, a little harsh, a typical Parsi no-nonsense voice and way of speaking. Gunjan speaks softly, her voice is musical, beautifully modulated, and the emotion she manages to get into her few words is just amazing. The voice in which she did the play announcements sounded as though she had dipped her throat in honey before speaking - a perfect announcer's voice, clear as a bell, each syllable beautifully enunciated and sweet. Her voice when she tells Samrat after the Sheena showdown - please, leave me alone just for a while - she didn't have to break down into sobs to show her heartbreak, she didn't have to show that she was barely controlling her tears in front of him, it was all in the few words she spoke and the voice she said them in. And the way she whispered 'I love you' to Samrat was just perfect - the depth of her emotion, love and happiness and shyness all mixed into it in just three soft words. It takes a paragraph for me to decribe the emotion she depicts in the few words she speaks.
Take her smile - Gunjan's sweet, gentle, always a little held back, as though she never smiles freely. And when you see Sanaya's sbs interviews, she's laughing, pulling other people's legs (mainly Arjun's and Mohit's) and getting her leg pulled very cheerfully.
She mentioned at the start of MJHT that she wasn't comfortable in Hindi, and this did show in the first few episodes - but now after a year of speaking the language, her dialogue delivery is much better, much more natural and easy on the ears. Her dialogues are more formal than those of the other three, but she carries them off beautifully - even the most cliched hackneyed ones she uses, like 'Samrat, sab dekh rahe hain' in the recent party, was so utterly natural because of the way she said it.
And take her dressing style - Sanaya is stylish, elegant and stunning, and completely comfortable in Western outfits - that's all she wears off the show. And on the show, I, for one, cannot imagine Gunjan wearing anything other than an Indian outfit. On top of which, she looks utterly, stunningly sexy in those outfits - even as a woman, I notice this, so obviously the guys on the set are all over her, be it Arjun, Mohit or anyone else (Arjun's comment - red apple, who everyone wants a bite of, was a little crude, but for guys that age working with such a sexy girl, completely understandable!).
That's probably why we all went gaga over drunk Gunjan - she was stunningly beautiful in the onion pink outfit, the thin gold belt accentuating the slimness of her waist was sexy like hell (no wonder Samrat kept grabbing her round the waist!), and when she gave that come hither smile to Samrat in the pillar scene, I could almost see how hard it was for him not to pick her up and carry her off!

Gunjan at the start of the show - the kind of heroine I can't stand. Gunjan with quiet strength, with a backbone, with the ability to make her point and put it across in a few well chosen words and the softest of tones, without raising her voice = the kind of heroine I admire the most. She has turned my opinion around 180 degrees and then managed to keep it there even through the worst phases of Gunjan character destruction.
She doesn't have the advantage of screamingly funny dialogues, of a bright, bubbly vivacious onscreen personality, in fact her on screen personality is dull, if anything. Sanaya has managed to color it into the brightest and strongest character on screen, without the backing of the script - Mayank is the hero always, and Samrat the leader - but still she has made her presence felt - and how! Creatives, please take note of the strength you gave this character, and the ability of this actress to portray that strength, and bring her back!