Alpana Buch, who has portrayed Leela Shah — fondly called Baa — on Star Plus' long-running daily drama 'Anupamaa' since its premiere in 2020, has offered a rare behind-the-scenes look at how she builds one of Indian television's most complex mother-in-law figures. In a candid conversation, the actress revealed that her approach goes far beyond memorising lines — she actively excavates the emotional subtext that the script sometimes leaves unspoken.

Finding Vulnerability Beneath the Stern Exterior

Buch's central philosophy for the role is deceptively simple: anger is rarely just anger. 'I remember days when the page had Baa only scolding, and my instinct said she is also afraid — afraid of the house changing, afraid of being left behind. I did not rewrite the dialogue. I played the fear under the anger. The line stayed. The scene changed,' she explained.

This internal reframing, she says, is what separates a layered performance from a one-note portrayal. Rather than accepting a scene at face value, Buch interrogates what Baa is not saying — and then lets that subtext inform every pause and glance.

Navigating the Pace of a Daily Soap

Working on a daily soap presents its own creative pressures. With scripts arriving in rapid succession, Buch has developed a disciplined two-step reading process. 'First I read the scene once for facts: who is in the room, what Baa wants, what she is not saying. Then I stop reading it as literature and start hearing it,' she said.

She is also willing to flag inconsistencies to the writers when a scene feels emotionally unearned. 'On a daily soap the script is a moving train. You cannot stop it because you would have written the scene another way. If a line makes Baa cruel without a reason or soft without a reason, I say so. Sometimes they keep it. Sometimes one look, one pause, and one Gujarati shading in the Hindi is enough to shift the meaning,' Buch noted. This collaborative instinct, she suggests, is how performance and writing can quietly correct each other even within tight deadlines.

The Risk of Playing a Villain

Buch is acutely aware of the audience's perception of Baa as an antagonist and considers it a personal creative failure if that is all viewers take away. 'If the audience only enjoys Baa as a villain, I have failed her. She can be unfair. She should not be empty,' she said — a clear articulation of her commitment to keeping the character morally complex rather than cartoonishly negative.

This stance also explains why she invests so much in the emotional architecture of individual scenes. A character who is unfair for reasons the audience can intuitively sense — even if they cannot articulate them — remains human. A character who is unfair for no discoverable reason becomes a plot device.

Buch vs. Baa: The Distance Between Actor and Character

Separating herself from a role she has inhabited for over five years requires conscious effort. Buch draws a clear line: 'If I feel like agreeing, forgiving quickly, or laughing off a slight, that is is me. Baa does not let go so easily.' That distinction, she believes, is ultimately what makes the portrayal credible — the audience may not always see the emotion underneath Baa's anger, but they can feel it.

'Anupamaa' also stars Rupali Ganguly, Adrija Roy, Shivam Khajuria, and Arvind Vaidya, among others. The show remains one of the most-watched Hindi daily dramas on Indian television, with Buch's portrayal of Leela Hasmukh Shah widely regarded as central to its emotional stakes. As the series continues to evolve its storylines, Buch's reflective approach to the role suggests Baa's contradictions are far from exhausted.