Mukul Dev is making a comeback to fiction shows a decade after Kaal Chakra, though he did host the first season of reality show Fear Factor India in 2006. Now, he will be seen playing the main antagonist Gul Badshah in the historical show 21 Sarfarosh: Saragarhi 1897. The actor will essay a tribal Afghan lord who hails from the Pashtun mountain belt and fights for his land. To get his accent and pronunciation right the actor took lessons from his father. “Being from Delhi I have been exposed to Afghan culture. Also, my father pretty much knows how to speak in Pashtun and Persian so I got my basic pronunciation from him, but it’s a Hindi serial, so I have done a mix and match,” says the actor, who is also learning horse-riding for the show. Apart from that there is a lot of emphasis on his look — long kaftans, salwars, a tribal pagadi, and surma in his eyes.
Ask him why he was missing from the small-screen for so long, and he says, “I got busy with South films, and later Hindi and Punjabi films. I was looking for a project that is contemporary and different from what is being shown on TV. When I got this offer from Discovery which is launching into fiction I was sure that will be taken care of. And no doubt the battle of Saragarhi is a landmark in our history, so I immediately said yes.”
