Posts tagged bani

An image of my three-year-old daughter sitting glued to the TV, with a red dupatta on her head is etched in my mind; that’s the impact Ekta Kapoor’s soaps (in this case: Kasautii Zindagii Kay) had on my family. So, when Mumbai Mirror granted my wish to meet the czarina of television, I took them along.

Thrilled that I gifted her a Hanuman Chaleesa and a Shani Shanti Paath, Ekta offered me my choice of beverage, nimbu paani. Reminiscing the Kasautii days, I told her how I’d wished for the characters Prerna and Anurag to stay together. “Ah! My next show is based in Kolkata,” said Ekta, smiling, “And I’ve tried to keep the essence of Kasautii alive in it; I’ve named the hero Anurag Basu.”

I asked her what she enjoyed most: direction, production or being the creative head. Creatives, she told me and explained how television, unlike films, is a broken medium as people work in isolation. “There is just no time to meet and exchange ideas when you’re making hundreds of episodes together,” said Ekta, “The creative director becomes an interesting point of confluence then.”

Though a gruelling job, I wondered if parts of it were fun; did Ekta like looking through portfolios? “It’s like a medical exam,” she said, “I know every trait of the characters I visualise, their More >