/> Bengali stalwart Victor Bannerjee's foray into Bollywood has been far from happy.

From the time he played the lead with Shabana Azmi in Lekh Tandon's Doosri Dulhan to his recent stint as Rani Mukherjee and Aishwarya Rai's father in Tara Rum Pum and Sarkar Raj, respectively, and as Dharmendra's chum in Apne Victor Bannerjee, best remembered for putting Indian cinema on the international map after playing the lead in David Lean's A Passage To India, has more or less decided to steer clear of Bollywood.

"I've reached a stage and an age in my career where I need to do work that keeps me economically and emotionally comfortable, " Victor says from his home in Mussourri. "And for that I need to get into spaces that don't require me to make too many compromises with my beliefs as an an actor."

Even Bengali cinema, once happy to offer Victor plum roles, has no space worthy of him. The stalwart has also been steering clear of Bengali offers in recent years.

But now television has offered him a role that he's comfortable with.

"It's a Bengali family soap called Bandhan on a new channel. I play the patriarch of the family—what else can I play at my age?—who holds his offprings into the family fold for as long as he could. Finally gives them the freedom to go whichever way they want."

The serial beginning in the last week of August will go on for a year.

"I need to work just ten days a month in this serial and I get paid well enough for me and my wife and my dog to be well looked-after. I can spend a part of every month in Kolkata.

The rest of the time I can be in Mussouri, " says Victor, who's thoroughly disillusioned with commercial cinema not just in Hindi or Bengali but everywhere.