Feel-good shows are our strength: JD Majethia

JD Majethia (Hats Off Productions), the man behind some successful shows like Sarabhai VS Sarabhai, Baa Bahoo Aur Baby and Khichdi, is now producing Bh Se Bhade for Zee TV. Bh Se Bhade is the story of a man who has the power to take problems of others onto him. In a conversation with Tellychakkar.com, JD talks about Bh Se Bhade and more…. “Today people don’t help one another but they do send messages on Diwali and Holi. I personally feel it’s more important to help people than wish on festivals and Bhade (Deven Bhojani) is one person who believes in helping everyone. We couldn’t have made an NGO show, so after he gets back with a problem at home, humour is created which is entertaining,” states the producer. Why such a long break from television production? “We took a break for four to five months because we realized things are changing. In today’s scenario TV has very little success ratio; hence to do something different is important. Things will get even more difficult in the future because TV is growing bigger. People have so many options. Earlier it was channel loyalty. Now it’s slot loyalty. There are more offerings. So to build your loyalty you have to work a lot. Everything has to be good, be it the concept, casting or the presentation.” Does this mean picking up a character from a famous Marathi short story book (VP Kale) was an easy bet? “We did not really pick up the character. We just picked up the one line philosophy – of a man who helps others. Then we made our characters. We spoke about the book because we wanted to give the writer credit for his creation.” We also tell him that he seems to be fond of characters from literature to which he avers, “Finding things in literature is good, but then you should be able to justify it. If someone cannot justify R K Laxman’s characters, they shouldn’t touch them. Similarly, had I not been able to justify VP Kale’s work we wouldn’t have created this show (Bh Se Bhade).” Can we say that the comedy genre is synonymous with your companies’ name? “See Shree was a supernatural story and Ek Packet Umeed too was again not a comedy but looking at our past record I can say that feel good shows are our strength. But with God’s grace we are versatile.” Are you happy about the show being a weekend property and not a daily? “It’s good to be on weekends. Every channel has its strength and I don’t think the viewers would watch this on a daily basis. Thus, I have a feeling that a light show is good for weekend.” So do you face challenges while creating humour? “Every time. It’s so that at times things are written well but then it gets difficult to execute it. There are execution limitations also e.g. we wrote a song which was sung by Sarita ji (Joshi). Here we had to show her dream sequence with Shammi Kapoor. It was just a 45 second song but if you don’t execute it well, it looks bad. There are times when very good performances are edited. So basically it’s a struggle.” We wish JD luck and success with Bh Se Bhade!!!