The queen of prime time

HITEN: I always wanted to be somebody somewhere and suddenly one day everything happened and it's all her (Ekta) doing!

RAM: She wants 110 per cent from the lead actor to the spot boy. You want to be in this company, you got to give a 110.

RONIT: You know once you join Balaji, at whatever level you are, you are not sitting at home... isn't that what an actor wants?

KARAN: Today you are the queen of prime time. Two years ago I told you the same thing. Two years later you're even beyond that. How does it feel to be the numero uno in your field?

EKTA: You know what? It has been the same! There was a sense of complacency which had come into the medium a couple of months ago when there was no competition and we were doing well. But now suddenly with Zee coming up, it's becoming tougher to be on the top. But the fun, the aggression, and the competition that TV has now...it's only going to get better and more fun!

KARAN: There is a large section of people who are constantly saying that your television is aggressive and they keep saying that repeatedly. I know I've been through that criticism time and time again. What do you have to say today? Do you get completely fed up of hearing this?

EKTA: No! Now it is a part of my life. 'Aggressive television...Oh! Staple diet for couch potatoes.' I'm so used to it. It doesn't even bother me. You know what happens, in TV, you realise that the people you are catering to and the people who are talking are two different people. I'm going to be catering to a mass audience.

People ask me, 'Why are you doing a show in which a father has problems with his daughter's marriage?' and I tell them, do you ever go to the India you live in? These are problems that exist in the India we live in! First know your country and then criticise my shows! You don't know your country; you don't know the problems people go though, if you are sitting in Malabar Hill.

KARAN: They are sitting in their safety nets and talking about what you are doing.

EKTA: Yeah! They don't even know what problems their bai is going through! She must be having a completely different mindset. She doesn't want to go home and fight with her husband about situations like, 'Did you ask me that during dinner?' That is not her conversation and I make TV for that audience! You don't like it, don't watch it!

KARAN: Well, you have changed people's lives and the timings in their lives. I mean suddenly they don't go out in that time frame! I know from my mother's routine that her life has changed and not only her - she represents a million other women or million other family people.

EKTA: And see, we are catering to them. I am here to entertain women who have lived homely lives. I make shows for the home makers. I really don't make shows for women who live in the upper stratas of society who want to have their creative juices flowing through television. I am sorry, I make shows for the masses!

KARAN: Do you feel the larger section of the audience is going with the flow of the drama in the show but are not even bothering about the little technicalities that the other section talks about?

EKTA: I think fiction is a suspension of reality and that is a fact of life. I mean you take shows abroad and they are such huge glitches in the stories there. I mean I just met the chairman of 20th Century Fox Television and we bonded because she and I had the same problems - actor problems, date problems and sustaining stories through time. And she was doing one-hour weeklies. They make Prison Break and 24 and stuff like that. And their appreciation of our TV was so much more than we appreciate our own TV. I mean she was seeing some of our stuff and she was absolutely amazed at how we could shoot accidents, opulent weddings in one day. She was like, 'Amazing! You guys rock!' and I was like 'Thank You!'

KARAN: You just spoke about actor problems. Is that a big big issue with you? Is that like a constant war you have to go through?

EKTA: Yeah! I live and die television and for the last seven years when the daily soaps took the biggest leap into Indian homes; I have only had one issue - Actor issues! Either someone is having a problem at home or they are having a problem at work or they are tired of doing the same thing. I mean they are all understandable problems but it is a problem that comes up from all sectors but it's the same thing - Actor problems!

KARAN: You have had a solid equation with possible one of the biggest stars in Indian television- Smriti Irani, who plays Tulsi in 'Kyunki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi'. There is a lot of conjecture about problems you are facing with her. How true is that?

EKTA: I would actually call Smriti and me - husband and wife! It is an arranged marriage we got into seven years ago. There are going to be fights, there are going to be issues, there are going to be days when I say that I wish I had never worked with her before and she will say the same thing about me but eventually we are yet in the marriage and that speaks a lot! And we are inseparable!

She looks back at the seven years with a lot of love for me and I look back with the same. So I don't really think that the daily issues matter because you see me and my mom work. I fight with her and we are at each other's throats but the very next minute we are laughing so people really don't understand these issues you know!

KARAN: So who holds the power in the relationship of Ekta Kapoor and Smriti Irani. Who has the actual upper hand in the relationship?

EKTA: I think it's a 20:20 scene! At times when I need the dates, she has the power and at times when she wants an off, I've got the power!

KARAN: Strangely you have only had issues mainly with all the male actors. Why are you always fighting with the men, Ekta?

EKTA: I don't know what this problem is, with men and me! I've not been able to hook one till now! Actually with women what happens is, they are smarter. They know exactly how far to push it. Men are extremely emotional, because of which they react to situations instantly. Because of which what happens is they would even put their career at stake if they came to it. Men are like babies. They have to be mollycoddled.

KARAN: You recently had this problem with Rajeev Khandelwal. He's out of your life now?

EKTA: Yeah! That's not any kinda baby I like! That was not somebody who wanted a toffee or a chocolate, he wanted my house! So I said No!

KARAN: No one's taking Balaji away from Balaji herself!

EKTA: Absolutely! But you know those issues are very cute like Iqbal has... 'No one cares for me' and 'I don't get that much time off!' and these are the kind of issues men have! Women have bigger issues but they never leave their shows for that. They are much smarter and they know what exactly what they are doing.

KARAN: You think men react instantly and impulsively and emotionally sometimes!

EKTA: But they are cuter! (Winks)

Ram Kapoor, Ronit Roy and Hiten Tejwani

KARAN: She has had a problem with you earlier during your bout with Ghar Ek Mandir. (To Ram)

Ram: Yeah! I have to say I was a very different person at that point of time. She gives all the credit to my wife for changing me and I have to agree with her because my first innings in television was more of discovery. I was deciding where I want to be.

EKTA: And you know what happened? I didn't know at that point of time that Gautami and he were seeing each other and I bitched him out to Gautami only!

KARAN: She created fights between many heroes and heroines in the industry at that time and now she's creating whole shows with the same feelings! So now everything is sorted and now you all are comfortable with each other?

RAM: I have come back into television with a whole better perspective of what TV is and I love the fact that I am back with Balaji. I know their strengths and their weaknesses, I know my strengths and weaknesses and now I think together, we are doing a pretty good job.

RONIT: you are the blue eyed boy of Balaji. You are practically in every show. With grey hair in some, without grey hair in the other! You play all kinds of ages, stages, rages, everything.

KARAN: How is it working with Ekta?

RONIT: You know there was a point in my life where there was a lot of alcoholism. One evening, this friend of mine called Raj, who was looking after my work, he came back home after meeting a producer. I asked him, 'What did he say?', so he went and he fixed me a drink and said, 'Let it go, we just had a chat!' so I said, 'No, tell me! I am a big boy, I can handle it!'

He said, 'You know Ronit... You are done! He said why should I take Ronit when I can cast any junior artist with more talent and less money!' and I thought, 'Yeah man! Maybe I am done!' and then Ekta came along and Balaji came along and I said to myself, 'No! I'm not!' At that point of time, Karan, I really did not know which way to go so that's why I always thank her. She has brought a dead actor, a dead human being... she has resurrected me!

KARAN: Hiten, you are a young boy today. You are in your early 30s but you are playing what... a 50 year old man in one show and who knows with another leap you will be 80 soon but you have the love and the regard of millions of people at such a young age. How does it feel?

HITEN: It feels very nice. I never thought of it! I always wanted to be somebody somewhere and suddenly one day everything happened and it's all her (Ekta) doing!

KARAN: We don't like too much praise on this show! You have something non praiseworthy to say about Ekta?

RAM: Oh God! That would be very hard!

KARAN: Is she a real tantrum-thrower? I believe she throws things at times when she's really angry.

EKTA: I do!

KARAN: You do? Have any of you ever seen that side?

RAM: Of course! We all have!

RONIT: I have not! I've heard of all this... all the tantrums, never experienced it!

KARAN: Nothing has ever come flying in your direction ever?

RONIT: No! Not even harsh words. I always tell my colleagues, my co-actors - there used to be a lot of bitching going on at the sets. Now they don't, because they know, I don't take it. But I always tell them that when an actor is doing one show and they crib about the long hours, you know she does 20 shows at a time. So if you can't handle the pressure of one show, look at what she's going through!

KARAN: What have you been exposed to? Any tantrums?

RAM: Yeah! Many tantrums! But now I've understood her. She's so passionate about what she does. 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am. in the morning she has been at it, the whole day, the whole night.

KARAN: But she comes alive in the night! Everybody doesn't know this- Ekta's day is her night!

Ram: And because of this passion, she wants perfection. She wants 110 per cent from the lead actor to the spot boy. You want to be in this company, you got to give a 110. So whenever she doesn't get that 110, is when her temper comes up. Other than that, I don't think anyone can call her an unreasonable person. It's only when she doesn't get the best.

RONIT: And also apart from her side of the work which would be the creativity, I've also noticed that every actor who joins Balaji is somewhere there at the back of her mind. You know once you join Balaji, at whatever level you are, you are not sitting at home... isn't that what an actor wants? I mean... I have sat at home for seven years... I know what it means to sit at home. She doesn't let that happen.

KARAN: You are very gracious that way Ekta! You have given a lot of people sometimes a resurrection, sometimes a creative life of their own. So do you feel a certain sense of satisfaction that you have so many millions of careers that you can hold the purse strings of or just their careers of, in general?

EKTA: More than a power I think it's just God's benevolence that he has given me a chance to be a part of the journey of other people's life. I really believe this you know. A company that makes millionaires is a better company than [one] that makes millions.

A company that has people who are growing and a company that sees that people are well looked after... that's why when people say, why don't you end your old shows, I say No! How many homes are running with that? There will be some people who will be out of work. It's a responsibility a company takes on. I read an interview of Mukesh Ambani's in which he said- 'A real entrepreneur is not somebody who finds their own talent but finds the vision and the possibility to see someone else rise in life.' I think that's a brilliant line he's said.

KARAN: I think that's the only way to be. I think that's the mantra of your success. You go girl! More power to you!

RONIT: Go girl go! We are behind you!

KARAN: Now you (To Ram) are the popular Jai Walia from the show Kasamh Se. Ekta was telling me that both yours and Ronit's characters were a product of this certain discussion she had with her team of writers. She wanted to bring this very suave, sophisticated, fancy kind of man on Indian television. First she came up with Ronit with the wonderful salt and pepper look and then you came on as Jai Walia. So this was the big thought.

EKTA: The whole idea was... what kind of man would make any of us drool or salivate. We sat and we discussed it and we thought we need a guy who is going to stand up there and make half the nation drool! Now there is something I want to tell you what Indian TV is all about. On film, it's usually men you idolise and women you fantasise... on TV it's just the opposite.

KARAN: Oh is it? You fantasise about the men and idolise the women?

EKTA: Exactly!

KARAN: See now if your women are Tulsi and Parvati, you can't fantasise about them! No offence to both of them, they are wonderful women.

EKTA: But men don't watch TV, basically women watch TV and I don't expect women to fantasise about Tulsi and Parvati so they are going to be sitting and actually looking at their problems and identifying with them and seeing the way they solve it and idolising them for that. They go into their bedrooms and they have these really boring husbands and they think what if I had this husband like Jai Walia or Mr. Bajaj or if it's a much older woman she'll tell her family that 'Karan beta bahut accha hain' but actually it's really more than that.

KARAN: And Jai Walia is a product of two big industrial names which I find very amusing!

EKTA: In the younger men, somebody who is slightly bigger built but good looking is Jeh Wadia and a grown up man who I think really looks hot is Vijay Mallya.

KARAN: So Jai Walia is a combination of Jeh Wadia and Vijay Mallya! Lovely! This is the best combination you can think of.

RAM: Can you imagine how I was supposed to prepare for this role.

KARAN: You just had to imagine a 1000 crore turnover in your head and walk the sets. That's fabulous. And Ronit's salt and pepper look comes from where?

EKTA: Mr. Gere.

KARAN: Oh! So you are the Richard Gere of Indian television. That was the brief given to you?

RONIT: Yeah! That was the brief given to me. I remember on the first day of the shoot we spent seven hours trying various products to get the hair right!

KARAN: When it comes to a big show, how competitive or ambitious is the atmosphere, when you have a big show hitting prime time like KBC? There is a lot of advertising, a lot of hype and hysteria. Is there something you are doing on another channel or another show to combat it?

EKTA: Absolutely. It's war!

KARAN: It's war? You have to compete with the TRP's?

EKTA: We just have to! Leaps happen, people get grey hair, some people get their grey hair off at that time.

KARAN: So you either leap or you kill a character or you being someone back?

EKTA: Always! It's a must!

KARAN: When was the last time you felt compelled to do something like this?

EKTA: Almost everyday!

KARAN: So then you would go for a 20 years leap or a 10 year leap. How many of you have leaped how many times now?

HITEN: One leap

RAM: I am about to leap. By the time this show is on air, I will have leapt!

RONIT: Leaps and bounds for me!

KARAN: So you are technically how old (to Ronit)? 90?

EKTA: We will not go into that. (Laughing) You can say 20 years younger than Ba!

KARAN: Which is 240! Ba is like a monument, she is not a person. She's like Ajanta Ellora. I think she'll be immortal. She will be lying in stone one day and we'll still be watching her. I don't think you can ever kill her.

EKTA: I can't kill her

KARAN: I think if you kill her, it will be like a national mourning.

EKTA: People are like, how can you kill Ba! I say arre she's 90... nahi nahi... so what?

KARAN: Who would be Ekta's ideal husband?

EKTA: Do you want to know who I would really like to marry if he was not married?

KARAN: Please?

EKTA: It's too much of an expectation but I would have loved to marry Mukesh Ambani. I think the man is enterprising and he is such a family man - A rare combination. That's what I would really want!

This interview appears courtsey Star Middle East Ltd. Episode 16 of KOFFEE WITH KARAN featuring Ekta Kapoor, Ram Kapoor, Ronit Roy and Hiten Tejwani

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