Spirit W | Girls need to take charge of their lives: TV Producer, Neelima Bajpai

The Indian viewers have a plethora of TV serials to choose from for their daily dose of entertainment. In this cut throat competition of retaining the audience’s attention and ensuring their loyalty every day is a task hard to do. Yet Neelima Bajpai has been successfully not only creating content which interests the audience but also ensuring that her characters are loved by the audience even after the serial goes off air. With her show Sapne Suhane Ladakpan Ke( aired on Zee at 7:30 pm ) making it to the no 1 position in the TRP ratings last week,  Adgully decided to talk the lady who is emerging as the no 1 producer in the market churning out successes with all her ventures. Her other serials of acclaim are Banoo Mein Teri Dulhan and Reth aired on Zee, Na Aana Iss Des Laado aired on Colors and many others. Currently, Neelima has Kaali running on Star TV & Sapne Suhaane Ladakpan Ke on Zee TV.

We asked her the reason according to her that has made Sapne Suhane Lakakpan ke liked by the audience. Neelima said it’s the connection with the characters…young girls who have stood up for their self respect, their rights. Yet the show is emotional in nature and combines both the traditional and modern thinking. The serial even shows the older generation making an effort to understand the youngsters

The message that she is giving out to the audience with this show and Neelima says, “Girls need to take charge of their lives and not take things, relationships for granted. Do not compromise on your self respect; let no one take you for a ride, if there is any flaw in you then try to change it. The mothers are supposed to see that the lives that they perhaps could not lead when they were teenagers, they should try and give that life to their daughters. Give wings to them to fly.”

Our next question was that why don’t we see more grey shades in her women characters? Why are they restricted to the stereotype of good or bad?

Neelima quickly responded that she disagreed with us to some extent. According to her Ammaji was a grey character. She was strong yet she had her own reasons to be what she was. So she could have been wrong for us but she was right in her own way for many others and that is why she was admired and loved so much by the people

She further added, “More than grey shades we are trying to make characters real so you have a Vani in Kaali who is not the typical mother. She is short tempered,gets irritated easily because she has lead a difficult life.

We also have a Shail who lies to her husband and family when she wants her daughter to play the hockey match. Traditionally you would not have found such a mother. And you will find grey shades in the lead characters too ahead in our show. The idea is to make the characters real, so you explore all the good bad and ugly side of them.

We were curious to know whether this serial too like others will fall into the SaasBahu trap as it moves on and Neelima rubbished our doubts by saying that so far there are no such plans…Our curiosity sometimes knows no bound and we could not help but ask about any show that she particularly follows on television and her brusque reply ended our further conversation on that. She said,“Not really…I used to see Jassi very regularly other than that I have not followed much on TV.

Any movie that she would particularly like to remake into a serial and her answer was a plain simple no.

When asked about the other concepts she is working on and other shows in the pipeline, Neelima said that they are working on concepts but these days it takes pretty long to start a show so she can’t really say when things will happen but work is definitely on.

The next question was rather big but Neelima did not lose her calm for the lady is used to taking criticism in her stride. The question we fired at her was that her previous serial Na Aana Is Des Laado had a good run initially but later on the storyline got monotonous and dull and lost its charm with the audience. Will SapneSuhane retain its freshness and continue to amaze the audience with its new twists and turns or will it eventually follow the course of her earlier serial?

“Well I won’t say that LAADO lost its charm. It was shifted to an afternoon slot and we had to make changes as per the new time slot. One never thinks that one’s show will become monotonous etc and I will try my best that SSLK remain as fresh as it looks now,” Neelima said.

We could not stop our tongue which was dying to ask about the competition that she faced ahead. Saraswatichandra by Sanjay LeelaBhansali is going to be aired on Star at the 7:30 slot-a magnum opus that will compete with her show. Her take on the competition ahead and does she think her show will continue to retain viewership post the launch of this magnum opus. Neelima patiently explained her point that competition is for everyone and at each slot and she does not think that after a point people will be fascinated by the scale, for later on what will ultimately grab eyeballs will be the story and the characters and this is what that will draw people to the show. “I strongly believe that competition is good. And In any case 7:30 slot is getting very competitive with the Sony launch(ing) ( Dil Ki Nazar Se Khoobsurat) and Sasural Simar Ka on COLORS  already doing well.

We might have ended our serious questions but we could not have let Neelima go withour revealing her fun side to our readers so we decided to tax her brain with our rapid fire round. We fired a series of quick one word questions and here is what Neelima had to reveal.

Favourite Movie: As Good As It Gets & Hazaron Khawashien Aisi

Favourite channel: cbeebies

Favourite Sitcom: Ye Jo Hai  Zindagi

Favourite Character from a film: Shiney’s character in Hazaron Khawashien Aisi

Favourite Character from a book: Krishankali by Shivani

One book you would want to adapt and make it into a teleseries: lots of Shivani’s work

One movie you would like to watch before the end of the world: A film directed by ME