Add onsWhile Mahayagya is reaching its 100th episode mark in a few weeks, director-writer Anil Choudhary has come up with some interesting twists and turns, complete with new characters. A whole new generation is being introduced. According to Chaudhary, Vimla Pandey (Rohini Hattangdy) and Chote Thakur's (Govind Namdeo) generation would be pushed into the background and youth leaders will come to the forefront. ``Viewers must be fed up of seeing the same old faces again and again, week after week. So we thought of introducing some new characters,'' he says. The new faces being introduced are Geeta Tyagi of Mohandas B.A.L.L.B. fame and Aditya Srivastav who shot to fame after the sucess of Satya. Both are graduates from the National School of Drama.Winning waysNot that Govind Namdeo is overly concerned. These days he can barely contain his excitement. The new year has bought him two awards - one the best actor award for Aashirwaad (Zee) and second the Screen-Videocon award for Mahayagya (Sony). We bumped into Namdeo on the sets of Aashirwaad and he looked quite thrilled. At this point of time, he feels that his coming to Mumbai has been fruitful and that his leaving Delhi was not a mistake. ``Awards are quite important for an actor as it boosts your morale and encourages you to do better work. And people are ready to experiment, many more doors open up for you. It feels great,'' says an obviously excited Namdeo.Comic caperSo what if Ketan Mehta's science fiction Captain Vyom isn't doing too well - that doesn't keep him from trying his hand at another television serial. He has come up with a serial called Chacha Chowdhary based on the comic by the same name which is the first original Hindi comic in the last 25 years. It's being produced and directed by Mehta for Doordarshan again and it's 52 episodes long. The pilot has already been shot. Raghuvir Yadav (Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne fame) plays the protagonist Chacha Chowdhary and Praveen Kumar (who played Bheem in Ravi Chopra's Mahabharat plays Sabu.Best manSony has started an interesting series related to cricket. It's called BPL Player of the Week. It is an international cricket award for the best man of world cricket week after week. The award recognises and rewards these players who excel. It has a panel of judges which comprises of Sunil Gavaskar, Vivian Richards and Tony Grieg. The winner receives an award of 500 US dollars from BPL. It will be aired every Sunday at 9 p.m. in between the musical show Aadaab Arz Hai which is a one-hour programme and is aired from 8.30 pm to 9.30 p.m.Winning Ways IITalking of Screen Videocon Awards another person who must be on cloud nine is Neena Gupta. She won two awards - her soap Saans on Star Plus - the pati patni aur woh saga was adjudged the best drama and she also bagged the best television actress award. But more excited than her seemed her father who was present on the awards nite as Neena was away in Pune for the Femina Ms India contest. And believe it or not so excited was he that when he went on stage the second time to pick up the award on his daughter's behalf he almost slipped and fell down on the stairs and the ushers rushed to help him.
