Television is escapism and not reality: Vipul D Shah

Vipul D Shah, one of the joint partners of Optimystix, is a man of few words. He is a writer, producer and an ace director. Currently, he is into the making of Comedy Circus and Crime Patrol for Sony Entertainment Television and Baal Veer for SAB TV. I have profound respect and love for this man who is a close friend of mine. Hence, as a guest editor at Tellychakkar.com, I decided to chat with him for the Behind the Lens section: Excerpts: How did your journey begin in this industry? Born and brought up in Gujarat, writing has been my passion since a long time. Initially, I started my career by writing Gujarati plays and scripts and used to also pen verses. Back then, I wasn’t much exposed to television. Later, after coming down to Mumbai I slowly and steadily understood the medium. I got accustomed to Doordarshan’s programming methods. Later, I started writing for television and also started directing shows. Slowly, I got into production. Currently, I have three to four shows in hand. Did you face any kind of difficulty in these gone by years? Yes, initially I did. But later on, things kept falling in line and coming my way. I am thankful to everyone who stood by me during my tough times. In all, I would say it was a happy journey. Did you ever face failure? Yes, failure in sense when a show goes off air in spite of putting in all the efforts. But, mostly, it’s not in our hands. Initially, I was very scared of writing for television. Thankfully, people in that era used to accept a particular thing that has now changed. What according to you has changed over the years in television business? I would say that television is not progressive but is escapism. Nowadays, shows are based on reality while earlier it was more of sagas and dramas. Now, the audience wants the same old thing in a different and researched package; they need details that are creatively inclined. When I made Saas Bina Sasural, it was also a dramatic saga, but the representation was different. How have TV actors grown over time? I feel every actor is a passionate person. Whoever has dreams in his eyes to go far, can definitely make it good in the field of acting. Throughout my journey, I have seen actors having a zeal for acting. There are many actors who have chosen acting as their career risking their education, In fact, we have highly learned actors who were engineers earlier, they left their job and took to acting; so much so that they are ready to give 100 per cent.