Filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker had a brief but brilliant stint with the small screen as an actor. It took him long to return to the medium as a producer with Everest. In a freewheeling chat with Divya Kaushik, he tells why he could not have told this story on television five years ago. He says it’s high time content makers should focus on literature
It is tough to not get inspired by him. The dedication, passion and hard work he puts into each of his project reflects the way he ran from pillar to post making sure that everything was in perfect order. Ashutosh Gowariker is a man of details. He stood in the corner, watching final rehearsals for the launch of his maiden show on television, Everest. A mix of anxiety and excitement was clearly visible on his face. It was surprising as a veteran filmmaker, he has successfully helmed so many Bollywood projects so far and this is not really his first stint with the small screen. Not many would know that the maverick filmmaker started his acting career with television, with the show Kachchi Dhoop on Doordarshan. Even after he became a filmmaker he tried to continue with his acting on the small screen, but he says that “direction took me away from acting, not really television. I have always been an ardent fan of the medium.”
Ashutosh says that while he was busy directing films, he never stumbled upon an idea that could have made for an interesting story for a TV show and that is why he stayed away from the small screen for long. And then Everest happened. “It was almost two years ago when I was oscillating between two concepts and I didn’t know how to take them forward. I wanted to do something to spread the message of the girl child and I wanted to make something with sports. One fine day, I decided to combine both and that was my ‘eureka’ moment. I started to write a story about this girl, who is rejected by his father just because he wanted a son to accomplish his unrealised dream of climbing the Everest. As his daughter, this young girl decides to accomplish this mission just to win his father’s heart. While I was writing the story I realised that it has so many characters that needed a focus; so many angles to it — that it was difficult to make it into a two and a half or three hours film. So I thought of writing it as a finite TV series. Also in the story you will notice that I have touched upon the issue and challenges faced by Sherpas and many other details related to mountaineering. This, I could not have done in a single film,” says the filmmaker who has a team of brilliant writers to take his idea forward.
The show that will go on air from November 3 on Star Plus has been mostly shot at locations like Nepal, Uttarakhand, Pokhran and Jaipur. They had to complete the shoot in winter months to capture the snow. The actors had to train themselves to be physically fit and learnt mountaineering. Ashutosh shares, “The challenges of this show are very different in nature. It needed to be shot completely within the winter months, when you need the snow. It was difficult for the cast to keep up with extreme weather conditions but everyone gave their hundred per cent.” Unlike other daily soaps, almost 90 per cent of the series has already been shot. “While writing the show I looked into how TRPs affect the shows but I realised there was no chance for me to wait for TRPs and go back to the mountains because the TRPs were pointing in some direction. I could not have taken advantage of it,” he adds.
It is strange that despite being a brilliant director, Ashutosh wrote the story of Everest and is also the one producing it. Ankush and Glenn are the directors of the show. Ashutosh explains, “I have liked TV as a medium and my experience of it has only been as an actor, which has been fabulous. When I thought of doing something for it, I planned to first produce it, write it and understand the medium. It is a very difficult medium to even write for. It is comparatively easier to write for films because in films, at least, you have first half and second half. Here you have to tell 20-minute stories day after day for over 100 episodes and engage the audience. I thought that was a very difficult thing to do and all those people who have shows going on for four years I think are all masters, they should get Padamashree for that. So I decided to discover the medium as a writer and producer. I hired expert directors like Glenn and Ankush who have done a lot of television shows. I acted in one of their TV shows, Woh and when I made my first film they assisted me. So they understand the template and my style of storytelling and therefore I asked them to direct the show.”
Ashutosh decided to work with the fresh cast for his show. He says he didn’t want to work with an established actor. “He would have taken over the character, which I didn’t want. The characters of this show are very strong and I needed fresh faces for people to identify with those characters,” he says.
Keeping in mind the medium, the story has been written as a family drama that combines adventure in the form of mountaineering as a sport. In the last few years, the content on small screen has seen a makeover. We have already been seeing fresh concepts and storylines gaining audience appreciation. Ashutosh says that it is only because of this change he could decide to do a TV series. "I would not have made Everest five years ago. Those were different times and the kind of stories that were popular then were different in nature. Today the audience taste is changing and more a people are liking different genres coming on television. The medium is breaking boundaries. In the last two years there has been a great change in terms of how the audience perceives TV, what kind of shows they want to see. They do want to see kitchen politics and there is no shying away from that. They do want to see family rivalry but at the same time they also want to see something different and that is why so many different kind of shows are being made," he says and hopes that there will be more shows based on literature on TV. “We have such a vast resource base in the form of regional literature. I think content makers should focus on bringing that to television. Attempts have been made but they should not stop just because a certain show didn’t work,” he adds.
After completing the shoot for Everest, Ashutosh will begin the shooting for his next period drama Mohenjo-Daro. This will be his fourth period film after lagaan, Jodha Akbar and Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se. “Certain themes that come to me are set in the past which has been a common occurrence with me. But for every period film, I have made a contemporary film. When I made lagaan, I made Swades immediately after that. When I made Jodha Akbar I made What’s Your Rashee, then I made Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se and now Everest. So I have always done period and contemporary alternatively,” says the director.
Ashutosh hopes that he will continue to produce more content for the small screen “but a lot depends on the audience’s response to Everest.” He is keeping his fingers crossed.