From working as a researcher for KBC, to making infortainment shows like Ekaant and Sanrachna and now the programming head of Epic Channel, Akul Tripathi has worked hard to create a good library of content from India. Sangeeta Yadav speaks to him about his journey
Your show Ekaant on Epic channel was a hit. How did the show happenIJ
Ekaant happened out of the blue. I had taken a break from TV and had no idea what to do next. I started a travel company and was travelling all over India when I got a call from the producer of Ekaant asking me if I would like to work on a show about abandoned places in India.
I was clueless about who would air this kind of show. That’s when I got to know about the new channel Epic and one thing led to another. I came on board as a researcher but later wrote and anchored it as well. I worked on multiple projects and officially joined Epic in 2017 as its programming head. I believe we can create a good library of content from India which defines the space and is infotaining.
Before Ekaant, you were in the core team of KBC, Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain and 10 Ka Dum. How did you come up with questions for computerjiIJ
There was a big team researching on news. I used to supervise and find questions which would make it to computerji. When we started working for KBC in 2006, Google baba was not so advanced and there was no hashtag. Trends were taken from listening to focused groups. We used to visit trains and sit on stations just to know what people were talking about. We spent time in libraries. There are two kinds of questions in the world — the ones you know the answer to and the ones you don’t. As a game show, we wanted to have questions from the subject which a lot of people are familiar with but didn’t know the answer to. The space for doubt is the fun thing in quiz shows.
Tell us about making EkaantIJ
We were sure that Ekaant was not a one-sided story or just a picturisation of the textbook or wikipedia or ASI. Our tradition is one of oral history and we remember what has been passed down the ages. Ekaant seeks to question written accounts. For most of these places, there is a recorded version of history, there is a recorded history of people who ruled that place and there is a recorded version of others who ruled nearby areas and then of the British. Yet, there are also parallel local narratives, folk songs and narratives, literature and memories of people who resided there.
Through Ekaant, we showed the various facets of the same place and experiences that people shared about it. We ended the show by saying ‘jo aap mehsoos karo wohi apka Ekaant hai’.
How is your second show Sanrachna different from EkaantIJ
Sanrachna talks about the famous historical and architectural monuments and the secrets behind them. It was comparatively much easier to do than Ekaant due to the availability of information for most monuments. A couple of monuments I pulled out because like Mahabat Maqbara in Junagarh and Konark Sun temple in Orissa took a lot of digging and having to understand what their architecture was trying to convey was a tough job. The challenge was that truly understanding the significance of why there were gothic elements and other aspects to these monuments. But be it Ekaant or Sanrachna, the place was the hero, not us.
What was the biggest challengeIJ
When I started researching about the places, each one opened up the possibility of dozen other places in their vicinity. These places have not disappeared but are broken down completely or lie under mounts of sand. What has always left me awestruck is that the locals know that there is a ruin over here but don’t know anything else about it and are not curious enough too to find out. We did not find local historians with knowledge about the places where they lived and grew up. Most tourist guides to historical sites give you a fantasy narrative of the place. There have also been rumours and we need to apply some basic knowledge to weed that out.