Hum is not a copy of Hum Log : Sanjay Tripathi

Sanjay Tripathi has taken up the task of re-producing Hum Log for Doodarshan and he claims to know what he is doing and what he is looking for. He makes a writing and directorial debut with the new Hum Log. TellyChakkar spoke to him about the challenges he faces and the expectations he has to live up to. You are coming up with Hum Log once again. How similar or different is this one from the earlier show? It is a completely new story but a few things are similar to the original. Sushma Seth who played daadi in that one will now be the sutradhar. The show is named Hum. The characters we have are once again believable but with a different look. We are launching this show with the same sincerity and honesty that Hum Log had but the content and the characters are different. Don't you think viewership might be a problem considering it is on DD? I cannot say about the viewership but I can assure you whoever sees the show will like it as the product we will be presenting before you is not a bad one. I cannot even talk about how popular the show will be for it depends on a number of other factors. Will the show be a weekly or a bi-weekly and what would be its time slot? As of now we have decided it to be a bi-weekly. But, the final word will be with the channel and we are still waiting for it. The time we have proposed for now is 9 pm slot. This is your debut serial? As far as Hindi serials are concerned this is my first show. But I have done shows on National Geography, Discovery, Doordarshan. The show Science Magazine on DD was a turning point in my life as it was the first show my company (Pulse Media) produced. You are trying to re-create the Hum Log magic, isn't it challenging? The team was very conscious in fact. Hence, we tried bringing in a few commercial writers but the work and the research that was required for this show was completely missing. So I had to write the story and send it to my creative team and the artists. All of them responded well so we took it up. How many episodes has the channel asked for? They have asked for 52 episodes and we have canned around 11 episodes. We will start shooting once again in mid-August. The serial too will go on air around that time. Will the story have one lead protagonist? This particular story is set in a village and not a house. It has five main protagonists who have their individual journey but in course of time they all come together as one. Hum Log is also remembered for the legendary Ashok Kumar who played the sutradhar. Will anyone play a similar role in Hum? We have Sushma Seth who will be playing the sutradhar in this show. She played dadi in the original. Do you plan to make re-makes of any other serials? I do not know about that but this one too is not a copy of Hum Log. The only reason people felt it is Hum Log part two is because Doordarshan was keen on making something like Hum Log. The only similarity that this serial has with the previous one is its producer Shobha Doctor who is mentoring the new version.