It's got to be the biggest TRP-boosting gimmick in recent times in India. And it seems to be working better than the people behind it had bargained for.

Last week, television viewers were shocked out of their couched stupor when their favourite matriarch 'Tulsi', played by the fiery and no-nonsense Smiriti-Malhotra Irani, was declared diagnosed with lung cancer.

To make matters worse, Smriti Malhotra-Irani was quoted as saying that she was indeed dying in "Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi".

As the entire Virani family sobbed their hearts out, viewers went into collective dismay. India' No.1 soap without its protagonist was inconceivable, if not unimaginable.

"It was a joke," laughs Smriti.

"A journalist jokingly asked me if this was the end of my character 'Tulsi' in 'Kyunki Saas...' I said that would indeed make the men very happy. We were both laughing. But I guess a headline was born during the banter. Now everyone thinks Tulsi will die," she says.

"Even my husband called after reading this. 'You made such an important career decision (to leave 'Kyunki Saas...') and you didn't inform me!' I had to pacify him."

"And now I must reassure the soap's avid audience. No, I'm not leaving the soap, not as long as I'm wanted on it. I was even asked if I'd die and come back, like my character's husband Mihir did. I said I hadn't heard of any such plans," she says.

So where's the character leading her?

"Search me!" chortles Tulsi, enjoying the joke. "I don't know where the script is heading. I never question the script beyond a point. Earlier Tulsi has gone through a number of crises. She got pregnant and lost her memory. For Tulsi getting over lung cancer should be cakewalk."

Meanwhile, the plot manoeuvre has created concern among TV audiences who think Tulsi's terminal illness may or may not be a ploy to grab viewers' interest further, with the soap going from a 4-day to a 5-day telecast this week.

'Tulsi' Smriti laughs. "I don't know about Tulsi. But overwork can certainly kill me now."

Reacting to the belief that "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" without Smriti is like "Koffee With Karan" without the coffee. "Ha! Not at all. No character in a soap is indispensable. After watching the devastation in Mumbai last week I'm convinced no human being is infallible. If anything, "Kyunki Saas..." is impossible without Ekta Kapoor."

The enterprising television tycoon laughs away her No.1 soap's current crisis.

"No, Tulsi in 'Kyunkii Saas...' isn't going to die. At a time when all of us have gone through Nature's unsparing fury it's just a very scary brush with mortality. Life, and specially life on soaps, sometimes needs a reality check."