Testing time for Ganesh Bhakts

Ironically, Lord Ganesha, who is always invoked before any auspicious event is being televised after other Gods. As if to compensate for the delay, there are two serials being simultaneously telecast on rival channels

There’s a strong belief that any religious ritual, a function, a ceremony, any auspicious event for that matter has to begin with an invocation to Ganesha. But on our small screen, it’s worked the other way. Unka number baad mein aaya. After televising the tales of Shiva, Lakshmi, Vishnu, Ram and Krishna, the makers have now found interesting material on the elephant-headed God, Ganesha. The subject is so vast that they had to make two serials on Him. While one is giving His darshan on Sony TV under the name Shree Ganesh, the other is gracing Zee TV as Jai Ganesha. Mind you, the telecast is on the same day, same slot with a difference of 15 minutes. Shree Ganesh is being shown on Sunday at 8.45 am and Jai Ganesha is telecast at 9 am.

Amongst the specialists of mythologicals, the first one to hit upon the idea of making a serial on Lord Ganesha seems to be the ardent Shiva devotee, Dheeraj Kumar. But Sunil Agnihotri begs to differ. Says he, "I had made a pilot of Ganesha in association with Crest Communications in 1996 and submitted it to Doordarshan. But it kept getting delayed." For Dheeraj Kumar, whose Om Namah Shivay is still running on DD 1, Shree Ganesh was a natural extension. "I am a devotee of Lord Shiva, so naturally I will be a devotee of his son Ganesha," he claims and adds that he has been working on the subject for four years.

Whoever takes the credit, it was Dheeraj Kumar’s Shree Ganesha that went on air first. Interestingly, his serial was to be telecast on Zee initially, but ended up on Sony. "It’s true that Zee was to telecast the serial but I wanted my serial to come on air during Ganesh Chaturthi, which Zee was unable to do. They cited programme exigencies as the reason for delaying my serial. So, I decided to switch over. When I approached Sony they showed an interest. In fact, they were delighted," explains Dheeraj.

Still, the serial did not begin on September 3 which was the first Sunday after Ganesh Chat-urthi, did it? "That was because Sony has a policy of having a bank of at least eight episodes before going on air, which we had not shot then. So, it got postponed to September 17," he clarifies.

How do they explain getting the serial to be aired on the same day on the same slot? Agnihotri claims that Zee had decided to air the serial on Sunday at 9 am a month ago, and even ran the promos. They were waiting for Shree Krishna to get over before putting Jai Ganesha on that slot. "They did toy with the idea of changing the slot when Sony came up with Shree Ganesh on the same slot, but I insisted they stick to the original time since we had already advertised it." But Rekha Nigam, Sony’s programming director is of the view that they were the first ones to telecast the serial and this kind of thing happens all the time. "Whenever we come out with a strong show, it’s a done practice for somebody to follow. We, however, are very confident about our product," she stresses.

But if you listen to Sunil Agnihotri, it’s a different story altogether. According to him, Zee wasn’t happy with the pilot episode of Dheeraj Kumar’s Ganesh, and therefore terminated the contract. Then they approached him to produce the serial. Since Agnihotri had already worked on the idea of a serial on Ganesha he was more than happy with the offer. "They told me they wanted a mythological of a grand scale, which would be different from the rest of the mythologicals. When I pointed out that the budget they were offering was not sufficient for a grand product, they told me not to worry about money and just shoot" he explains.

In fact, the reason Agnihotri, who has to his credit fantasies like Chandrakanta and Betaal Pachisi, decided to make a mythological was because "the Gods were not being presented in the right manner." Says he, "I have seen all the mythologicals on the tele and found all of them to be very bad." He promises that his Jai Ganesha will be a notch higher. He has employed Rajtaru for special effects and cast a little kid, Aman, who’s only eight years old in the role of Ganesha. "Whenever you see Ganapati you get an impression of his being cute and that’s how I wanted my Ganesha to be," he informs. As the episode progresses, the actor will change, but Agnihotri wants to keep the image intact.

Dheeraj’s Shree Ganesh has Jagesh Mukati, a stage actor playing the Lord. To make him look authentic, Dheeraj is working hard on getting the make-up, especially, the trunk right. "It’s been done in three parts - a long shot, a close-up and a mid-shot. It costs Rs 3,30,000 for the whole trunk," he states. He’s proud about the underwater shots and other special effects that are being executed by Samudra Video. Dheeraj’s budget for Shree Ganesh is substantially more than what he’s spent on his other mythologicals. "Earlier the competition was not very fierce, but now there’s cut-throat competition (read another Ganesha). So, we have to put our best foot forward," he justifies.
Agnihotri who’s making a 104 episode serial, feels that competition is good for both the channels because each will get a good product. "Ultimately it will be the survival of the fittest," says Dheeraj whose Shree Ganesh starts from the point when Ganesha was a cosmic energy, and not the elephant-headed God, most of us know. "He’s been existing since time immemorial as cosmic energy and my first twelve episodes will feature Him as Panchmukhi Mahaganesh," he enlightens. He is sourcing material from Oriental Research Institute, while Agnihotri is taking stories from the 18 puranas. His Jai Ganesha started with a fight between Ganesh and Parshuram. "I decided to introduce Ganesh from the first episode itself because when it’s called Jai Ganesha people would want to see him right away. I didn’t want to drag it by starting with Shiv and Parvati," he informs.

Incidentally, both the serials are being shot at Film City and that too on the sets which are within a range of 15 metres from each other. What if the artistes get mixed and create confusion, we joke. But Agnihotri is not amused. "Though we are very close, the question of confusion doesn’t arise because my artistes look rich. The casting and dresses are good and look different on graphics." How different, only the Ganesh bhakts will decide.

Chaya Unnikrishnan

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