Ekta Kapoor has always been my admiration - Kovid Gupta

Kovid Gupta has been one of the Indian - American authors to have got an opportunity to showcase his talent and work with shows like Balika Vadhu (Sphere Origins) on Colors, Bade Achhe Lagte Hain (Balaji Telefilms) and Chhanchhan (Optimystix Entertainment) on Sony TV as a writer. Besides this, his fascination for Balaji shows and admiration for Ekta Kapoor made him write an entire novel called Kingdom of The Soap Queen: The Story of Balaji Telefilms.

In this candid chat with Kovid, he speaks about working for Balaji Telefilms, characterization of each individual in the show and much more.

Read on!

Interest in writing: I actually grew up in United States. I spent all my life there and our TV sets used to be on all the time. My parents actually brought Indian channels so that I could learn about India. I got hooked to Indian shows and Hindi cinemas by watching them all the time. I used to find them fascinating as to how these soap writers manage to think in a way to tell out stories to the masses. My mother, day after day, week after week and month after month used to get involved in such soaps. She watched the same shows repeatedly.  After a while, I found interest in it and started writing some open ended stories.

Grounds on which you came up with concepts of Balika Vadhu, Chhanchhan and Bade Acche Lagte Hai : I did not basically come up with concepts but they were by several other writers. I joined the shows when they had already kick started. Balika Vadhu had already finished 200 episodes; Bade Acche Lagte Hai had completed a year. They already had the concept engraved.

Experience of working with Balaji Telefilms: While I was writing for Balika Vadhu, I got Bade Acche Lagte Hain. I had a friend who knew someone at Balaji and she connected me. I went and met them. They were so heartwarming and they had an opening at Bade Achche...and that is how I got into Balaji. I grew up admiring Ekta Kapoor so I really wanted to work for Balaji and Ekta.

Messages to convey: What interesting is, TV is main stream and through our shows we have to make sure that we give out right message to the viewers. From my seniors, I have learnt that how do you pull the matter and how do you narrate the story. India is getting modern by the day and it is necessary for the audience to know about the same through our shows. Conveying these messages in a distinct manner is very difficult.

Writing a complete novel on Balaji? Kingdom of soap queen - the tale of Balaji Telefilms is the novel that I have written. I wanted to write a novel on Balaji, firstly, because I admire Ekta Kapoor, wanted to learn more about her journey, her work. For me that was for my own learning. The second thing was, there is not much material in terms of literature, in terms of textbooks. There is not much material about our cinema, about our television as to how it's done, how these successful movies come across us. There are not many books out there, so I felt of writing one so that one can use as a case study or refer anytime they want to.

Research for the novel: I spoke to about 100 people in Balaji - actors, directors, writers and Ekta ma'am also. They all imparted me with a lot of information and also enlightened me. I wrote everything from the scratch about Balaji. I also spoke to Ekta Kapoor and she managed to give me a lot of inside news - how she grew up, childhood et al.

Character variation: I cannot take the entire credit. My senior writers too helped me with it. But the most important part is to give out precise characters regardless of it being a negative or a positive one. Each character should come out and stand up. Like Supriya Pathak in Chhanchhan, she was a woman with old thinking but is justified from her point of view because she was brought up in that kind of atmosphere. Same goes with Dadisa in Balika Vadhu. So you should be able to justify your character and see to it that your character has to evolve. A character cannot be the same in the show. It has to change in the course of time. Like Dadisa, her character has changed a lot since the time the show started.

Planning to write another show? God willing, I might write another show. I eventually wrote another book that came out recently. I was very fortunate to do that. And I am currently working on my 3^rd book right now. It is a collection of short stories which may be coming out soon in 2015.

TellyBuzz wishes Kovid all the luck for his endeavors.

Upasana Patel