S h o b h a n a D e s a i

Quality software for family audience
Following in the footsteps of her elder sister Jankana, Shobhana Desai made her acting debut on Gujarati stage thirty years ago. A decade later she became a producer and produced 12 successful plays. While plays continued, she entered the television arena on a small scale in 1989 with Gujarati serials under her banner Sanket which later became Shobhana Desai Productions. Under this banner, Shobhana has produced nearly 900 episodes of different serials over the past 12 years. And now this software company is poised for a big take-off and slated to go public one year down the line.

Acting was probably not her cup of tea. Though between 1972 and 1981 she did nearly 20 plays. Shobhana says her heart was not into acting and she didn’t take it seriously. What excited her most was production. "I always wanted to be a producer, be at the helm and call the shots because I like to control the show," recalls Shobhana who started producing plays Sanket in 1981. Some of her popular plays include Sarpnath, Action Replay, a musical and a run-away hit, and Andho Pato which had three blind men planning a bank robbery.

From producing plays, Shobhana made her foray into serials and made about 100 episodes of 13 Gujarati serials for Ahmedabad Doordarshan. With Jeevan Mrityu in 1995, she entered the Hindi serials arena. The tele-soap which was based on a Gujarati novel was telecast on the city-centric channel In Mumbai and was closed after 35 episodes. Her next venture was a major production, a daily bilingual soap titled Sapna Na Vavetar whose Hindi version, Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka, is currently on air on Sony. Though the Gujarati version has been taken off air because Doordarshan objected, the Hindi version, according to Shobhana, is going great guns.

Revolving around a joint family of four brothers and one sister as its progenies, the soap deals with values and traditions of a joint family system, and Shobhana says it reflects life. Telecast from Monday to Friday at 11 pm with two repeat telecasts, Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka has completed 425 episodes and Shobhana wishes to take it to 1,000 episodes if it continues to mop up good TRPs.

However, Alpviram, her second production for Sony which is 92 episodes old is all set to wind up in another three weeks as "its linear one-track story is ending".

Having made the first Gujarati daily soap on Indian television, Shobhana will be the first producer to make a similar show in the same language for a satellite channel as well. And she is ready with one for Zee’s Alpha Gujarati. Titled Shubh Labh and slated to go on air by May-end, it is again a story of a liberal joint family headed by a widow who is modern and liberal in her outlook and attitude. Other projects in the offing include one weekly soap each for STAR Plus and Sony. While the show for STAR Plus will go on air in June, the serial being made for Sony will be telecast in the last quarter of the year. She is also negotiating with other satellite channels but the deals haven’t been clinched yet.

By her own admission, she loves production and handles all the production work of her software. "I just love being on the sets," she says. On the other hand, Vipul Shah who is directing Alpviram and is the series director of Ek Mahal Ho Sapno Ka and Shubh Labh, is the creative head of Shobhana Desai Productions and takes care of the finalisation of concepts, script-writing and casting. "We created the company together and half the credit goes to Vipul in making it a successful software house," says Shobhana. She further adds that she is answerable to her viewers and therefore she will always strive to make quality software for family audience.

A.L.C.