Kkusum’s Abhay to die in a car crash

The four year old soap Kkusum is facing a tough time at the moment with its broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television Asia.

First the channel snubbed the show in its tenth year celebrations over the weekend. Sony did not give the show a single mention in its promotional material. The second, the show has been shifted to an earlier timeslot in India to make way for new shows.

Now according to the Mid-Day magazine, its popular character Abhay (Anuj Saxena) will be axed from the show.

Abhay?s death sequence was shot at Film City, Goregaon yesterday, amid high drama. This signals the exit of Saxena from the soap. Balaji creative head Nivedita Basu confirms Abhay?s departure from Kkusum?s life.

?Yes, Abhay will be shown dead this week (In India),? she says. And it is highly unlikely that Abhay, in true Balaji soap style, will resurface from the dead. When asked about his exit from the daily, Saxena refused to comment.

It is learnt that there are several reasons for Abhay being bumped off from Kkusum. Apparently, Saxena was not keen to be part of Kkusum after the revised telecast timings.

Secondly, the doctor-turned-actor had repeatedly voiced his desire to leave the show due to the constant cheat shooting (with dummy actors), the non-availability of scripts on time, and a complete lack of banked episodes.

But in August, on Jeetendra?s intervention, Saxena decided to stay on. The actor had also been summoned by Sony?s Tarun Katiyal for a meeting about his decision to quit Kkusum at that time.

Kkusum?s shift to a dead time slot might mean the beginning of the end for the Balaji daily, which completes 1,000 episodes in November. Interestingly, Kkusum is still a popular show in USA and the UK. Whether Abhay comes back to life with a new face, or there is a new man in Kkusum?s life, remains to be seen.