Colors’ most talked-about show Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat will set the bar higher for historical shows on the small screen with magnificent sets, high-end VFX technology and well-structured script. By Divya Kaushik
Intricate carving on walls, huge hallways and grand facade — everything looked too real to fool a naked eye. The royal sets that have been created at ND Studios in Karjat for Colors’ magnum opus Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat is every bit a masterpiece created by two creative geniuses, Nitin Desai and Omung Kumar. The show which is said to be “one of the most expensive fiction shows on the channel” will go on air from February 2. Every care has been taken by the production house Contiloe and the channel to make the show a one-of-its-kind historical on the small screen, targeted to influence and educate the audience in an engaging way.
The show will highlight Ashoka’s journey to becoming the great emperor, heroic warrior and the epic legend that he was. “Ashoka is one subject that every kid in India would know about and every one also knows that he is Ashoka the great. He was the greatest emperor of all times but still his is the story that has never been told on TV and there are different ways of telling his story. So we decided to begin the story from when he was a boy and his journey begins from Pataliputra,” said Raj Nayak, CEO of Colors. He shared that they were toying with the idea of adding a historical show to their programming line-up for the last one and half years. The last historical show on the channel was Veer Shivaji three and a half years ago.
“We decided to take off the show when it was getting us the rating of 2.5 as then there were other shows doing better than that on our channel but we also realised that we could have continued with it. Post that we always wanted to do a historical show. We were trying to choose between history and mythology. We did not find a subject which fascinated us and also there were other issues involved. Since Colors does a lot of non-fiction shows, a lot of money is spent on that and second we needed a one-hour slot for this kind of a show. We felt that after Bigg Boss we can have that one-hour slot. We researched and found a subject which was not tried on TV before. We decided to do the show with Contiloe because in the past they have come up with some excellent historical content on TV. They have the grand infrastructure that is required for such shows and they know what works and what doesn’t,” said Nayak.
History has made a comeback on the small screen in a grand way. It is interesting to note that with every show the production values are scaling new heights and there is more focus on storytelling. Abhimanyu Singh, CEO, Contiloe, who has been coming up with a historical show each year after the success of Jhansi Ki Rani in 2009, said, “Production values are becoming much better and the recent shows have proved that you need to achieve certain standards to make the show interesting for the audience. The most important factor is storytelling.
As the audience’s attention span is reducing, it is a challenge for producers to keep the story engaging and it is here that the storytelling and technique come to play. To give an example, when we are telling a story of Ashoka we have done our thorough research to focus on facts that are not known about him. The show will resonate with present-day audience due to the sheer relevance of his ideas of democracy, freedom of speech and expression and the prevalence of the Ashoka chakra and its emblem on every coin and note. We are trying to tell an inspiring story of a creator and sending out an important message. History needs to be told in an interesting manner, so most historicals are dramatised but while we have dramatised the story, we have taken care that we do not distort facts. One has to stay true to the DNA of the story,” said Singh.
The channel has come up with interesting promotional campaign for the show in urban and rural areas. While they are promoting the show through jatras and melas in small towns, in metros like Mumbai and some other cities they have tied up with Metro rail authorities to distribute “Ashoka tokens” for 10 days. The show is being planned as a finite series as of now. “Ashoka is a subject that can go on and on. So far, we have decided to keep it as a finite series that will surely go on for next six months. But if the show earns good ratings then we may decide to continue it or will bring the second season of the show after a break. When we do things at Colors we do not go with a fixed mindset, we are willing to experiment and take risks. It is impulsive and strategic decisions that we take, but right now Ashoka is planned as a finite series,” said Nayak.