Actor Manish Goplani, who is known for his remarkable performance in Thapki Pyar Ki, will be seen playing a cop in Zee TV’s latest offering — Detective Didi. Set in the Capital city of Delhi, the new show will see Bhim Singh Bhullar (Manish Goplani) and private detective Bunty (Sonia Balani) investigating the city’s most baffling criminal cases.
Bhullar is a jolly cop from the Delhi crime branch, who investigates staying well within the rule book while Bunty takes matters into her own hands as she doesn’t have faith in police. They always fight tooth and nail to catch criminals and solve many interesting cases. Goplani was in the Capital recently to promote the show and spoke about his experience of shooting in the city. Excerpts:

Q. Going by its name, Detective Didi, it seems to be a woman-centric show. How much space will you get on screen?

I don’t think there should be any fight for the amount of footage or screen presence. An actor must work as per demand of the script. For me, what matters is how wonderfully I performed my duty. Even if I appear for some time only, I believe I should do full justice to it. I try to give my 100 per cent, so that people remember my role.

Q. You are playing a cop from Delhi, but this place has already earned a bad reputation not being a safe city. What have you learnt while playing this role?

After playing this character and doing some research, I came to know that the cops are under a lot of pressure. They have many cases but less manpower and time. Policemen are working well but numbers of cases are more.

Q. Any suggestion and improvements you want to see in the police department?

The first suggestion, you can’t leave everything on the police. They have some bounds and limitation — they have to go legally in every case. At the same time, technology should be used by the police.

Q. How did you prepare for this character and have you ever thought in real life of becoming a police officer?

I have done a lot of observation for this character. You know, when I came last time, luckily there was some police conference going on in the same hotel I was staying in. I watched them really carefully and learnt a lot of things from them. In my real life, I have not thought of wearing this uniform but I wanted to become an army man. Since childhood I wanted to join the army, but things changed down the years.

Q. You have been shooting in Delhi. How do you like this place as a city?

I don’t have any connection with Delhi as I belong to Jaipur. During my teen days, I, along with my gang of friends, used to drive down in my bike to Delhi’s border but not inside. Like Mumbai, Delhi is also a fast city. While shooting, I came across many different characters of people and I have learnt many things from them. Since it is a live location we are enjoying a lot.