Dharmesh Mehta, who is well known as the director of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, has been doing theatre for the past 30 years. He's been actively acting in, producing and directing plays. He first started his stint as director of Apnapan on Sahara One which was followed by Hum Sab Baarati on Zee TV followed by Taarak Mehta. His journey with Taarak ended some time back but he is ready to wear the cap of a producer now. TellyChakkar talks to Mehta about his journey in the industry. How has your journey in the industry been till date? I started as a child artist in 1979. Later I started directed and producing children’s play. I was doing theatre and after this I also started doing Gujarati commercial plays. I played a lot of characters in the late Shafi Inamdar’s plays. In one of his plays I played a blind man and Sharman Joshi played deaf. I had directed a commercial play in 1990 with Apara Mehta. My first play as a producer came in the year 1995. And, even today I am associated with theatre. I started acting in Gujarati plays with Asha Parekh. Is this where you always wanted to be? Basically, I am a civil engineer but I wasn’t interested in it. My parents wanted me to do it and hence I did it. Even when I was studying in ’84 I used to work as a spot boy just for 35 rupees a month. I used to pick up people’s slippers and give them tea. My parents never liked it but I always wanted to do it and I knew I would be successful some day. My father tried explaining to me that I should do something else and I would be decently paid working for any company and that I was better off earning a big salary than the 400 rupees I earned every month. But God was on my side and I am here today. Did you ever regret your decision? There hasn’t been a single moment of regret in my life. You had been associated with Taarak for a long time… how did the association happen? JD Majethia, Asit Modi and Deven Bhojani have all been from theatre and I was always associated with them. In fact, Deven and I are childhood friends. We played Changu and Mangu in a play by the same name. Then JD called me for Ba Bahoo Aur Baby. I did the show for two years till one day Asit called me for Taarak. Why did you move out of Taarak after completing 500 episodes? I had been planning to come up with my own production house for the past one-and- a-half year. So I was thinking about it so after about 400 episodes I decided to quit Taarak to focus on this. But, you joined Papad Pol as a director as soon as you left Taarak? Actually, soon after I left Taarak, Vipul Shah from Optimystix called me and asked me to do Papad Pol. He wanted me to do it for sometime so I took it up. I must have done it for hardly two-three months. There have been accusations leveled at you for tampering the script written by the writers in Taarak… Taarak was not a daily soap and I am from theatre so I feel things have to be interesting when you’re showing a story. Hence when I wasn’t satisfied with a particular scene and if I’d feel that a particular scene was becoming lengthy I would cut it. Be it one or two pages or the entire scene. But I wouldn’t deny the fact that my writers were very good and they too knew that if the director is not happy he has the right to make changes. If I just have to say ‘action’ I would do any other show. The vision in your left eye is affected. Doesn’t this make direction difficult for you? Yes, it does. It is not easy to direct with your one side vision being blocked. But on May 25, 2007 I met with this accident and the doctors told me I wouldn’t be able to work for a year and since I was the only earning member in my family I couldn’t have afforded to wait that long. So, after about 10 months I started shooting on August 1, the same year. So it was just two months that I was not working. Don’t you feel it’s high time we change our camera techniques and let the actor act freely and not just for the camera? Especially in comedy it’s nice to have that kind of technology. For in comedy lesser the number of takes, better the output. Since we have limited camera and different angles the actors get exhausted which shouldn’t be the case. Is there anything you dislike about the industry? Things have turned better with the 12 hour work shifts thing but even this leads to problems as the actors these days are not professionals. They get work immediately so once they become popular they come and go whenever they feel like. If you are working only for 12 hours then you should ensure work gets done and then leave. I did Taarak for long but there wasn’t a day when I was not on time. Do you want to see any changes in the TV industry’s working style? There has to be consistency as I do not think that anyone can prove themselves in a month or two. The director must be given at least six months for they face so many problems. The actors come late on set and if I as a director have to give my episode for editing till three I should have things ready by two. But if my actor reports late and then causes further delay by staying put in the make-up van how much will I shoot in that much time? In these situations, you are then more worried about completing your episode on time than your creativity. Today it’s so bad that I can’t name one decent actor. The camera works more than the actor and the sets are bigger too so, it’s all glossy. There is no content and that is why the serials get over in three and four months. What’s next? I am planning to produce a few serials including a Marathi serial.