Winning Awards is Validation For Your Hard Work: Ashish Shrivastav

From theatres to directing one of the most-watched TV shows on the Hindi small screen, Ashish Srivastav has come a long way. In an exclusive interaction with Sakshi Post, he tells Reshmi AR about his journey. Excerpts from the interview.

1. Tell us about your journey into the television industry

 I was born in Naini, a satellite town near Prayagraj. Then in 2000, I moved to Delhi where I started with theatre as I was highly interested in the same.  I moved to Mumbai in the year 2002 where I started my career as an assistant director in the then popular show "Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii" and had my first breakthrough as a director in the same show. From then on, there was no looking back for me.

2. Is it important to have contacts or mere talent is enough to get a breakthrough in this industry?

 Both contacts and talent are very important. But besides these two things, luck is also very important.

3. When you started work on Imlie 2, the pressure must be weighing on you, considering the fact that Imlie 1 was one of the most trending shows. How did you handle that?
It's correct that Imlie season 1 was also one of the top shows of its time. We started Imlie season 2 in very short time and tried to keep the legacy and popularity of Imlie. It was a little bit of a challenge with new actors and a smaller number of dates to start the show, but somehow the whole team tried to make one of the best shows and finally now we can see the result and we are trying to keep it in the top trending shows and it's also fun when you stage a show that is already popular, you get the previous viewers.

4. Now Imlie 2 has not only met but exceeded audience expectations and won the ITA award in the Best Drama category, how does that feel?
 Winning an award is a good feeling. It's a validation for all the hard work you put into a certain project. The second season of 'Imlie', just like the first season, received a lot of love from the audience. Winning this award makes us feel that we are doing something right, and we should keep up the good work.

5. From Kahaani Ghar Ghar ki to Imlie, do you think there has been a change in the kind of plots that are suitable for daily soaps? 
Yes, there has been a huge change in the plots of daily shows. Nowadays, viewers are served a lot of new content.

6. What kind of trends do you observe in the audience of TV? 
 I would not say that the trends are similar or that there is any particular pattern. The trends change over time for the TV audience.

7. Do you think the TV soaps are still relevant given the OTT invasion in entertainment?
 I do not believe in that at all. 70-80% of people in India who live in the interior do not consume content on OTT platforms. They still prefer to watch TV. Especially women in the 30-60 age group are now watching shows from TV. The type of content produced on TV is also very different from what is seen on OTT platforms.

8. How much pressure is there for the creators of TV series to stay on top with so much competition from different entertainment platforms/channels?
 The pressure to stay on top is always there for the creators because there is a lot of competition. In fact, sometimes the series is discontinued within 2-3 months. During that time, the pressure is definitely not only on the creators, but on the whole team, be it the director, the actors, everyone. But there is always a margin for quality work, because nobody wants their series to be cancelled after 2-3 months, because the next series needs 2-3 months to start again.

9. Considering that TV series run for years and you can not upset the readers, it's important that the director and the actors stay in sync all the time, which is humanly impossible because there are bound to be differences, creative or not. How do you manage to create harmony on the set? 
Actually, creative differences are not too big when a series runs for a very long time. People know each other from somewhere. And they understand that whatever the director or the creative director or the production team says, they are only doing it for the good of the series. So I have always been very positive about those things, and I have always kept in mind that we are all just working for the good of the show. Running a show for a very long period of time is not possible by one person, it's complete teamwork. So if we consider the welfare of the show as the top priority, there is no room for any differences, and (touchwood) things have always been good and healthy for me. Yes, of course there were arguments and discussions, but it was always about a particular scene, a particular show or a particular time, and we never carried those things over to the next day. For me the show is important and I always believed in teamwork.

10. Have there been times when actors suggest changes to the script? Would you be okay changing it for them?
 Sometimes it is the same script that actors complain about, or we feel it is not correct, and sometimes it is changed. Again, I would say what an actor does for the show is what he or she lives on set every day. The actor understands what his or her character is asking for, so yes, there are definitely tiny changes being made to the script and not the entire script, so it's okay for anyone to make tiny changes to the script, even the creative team and the people at the network, because it's all about the benefit of the show. Also, I think that the actor should get that motivation, so of course tiny changes to the script are also welcome 

11. Do you intend to jump into the OTT bandwagon?
 Every person dreams of achieving something great in life. But talking about me personally, I would not say that it would be advisable for me to leave TV completely and switch to OTT or movies because the process of switching from one thing to another is a bit time consuming and you also need a good backup for those things and of course when the right time comes, I will definitely do other things as well. But right now Imlie 2 is going great and we are having fun with it as well.

12. What next besides Imlie 2?
In the future, I'll go with the flow, whatever comes to me naturally I'll think on taking them.

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