Gulshan Sachdeva

The versatile tele-visionary

Whether it is documentaries, serials, soaps, tele-films, tele-plays, short commercials or any other genre of television programming, Gulshan Sachdeva has done them all. With over 25 years of experience in making television software, he is a true television veteran who has witnessed the growth of television in India right from its infancy in the early ’70s to a gigantic industry in the ’90s.

After working with Doordarshan for 16 years, he went his independent way a decade ago and started making ad films. After making more than 50 short commercials, he went back to his first love. That is making television software.

Very few people know that he was one of the driving forces behind the launch of Zee TV in 1992. He had supervised the appointments of some of the key persons in the channel. He was there when Zee’s first serial was approved. In short, he is a man who put in all his creative inputs during Zee’s infancy.

Obviously, an offer to join Zee was there on a platter before him but he declined because at that time, he didn’t want to shift his base of operation from Delhi to Mumbai.

While television celebrity Rajat Sharma may like to take the credit for conceiving Aap Ki Adalat, the fact is it is Sachdeva’s baby. He conceived the format and produced and directed Aap Ki Adalat as Sharma, then a television novice, didn’t know anything about how a television programme is made.

While Sharma anchored Aap Ki Adalat and used his contacts to get politicians and celebrities on the show, it is Sachdeva who as the creator, producer and director of the show called the shots. But the programme made Sharma a celebrity and he walked away with all the credit. Says Sachdeva, “Well, he was in front of the camera doing half the talking, so he got all the credit. Nobody wanted to know who was actually calling the shots from behind-the-camera.”

But he quit Aap Ki Adalat after 80 episodes and Sachdeva says he did it for two reasons. “One, because Zee made it an in-house production,” he explains. “And the second reason is that after doing the show for more than one and half years, it became monotonous and boring because for a creative person there was not much to do in a programme like that. I got tired of working in a multi-camera set-up and I wanted to get back to making fiction.” Thus, two-and-a-half years ago, he made the pilot of Zanjeerein which is now being aired on Zee TV and has been well-received by viewers.

Though he is a man behind the camera for the last 25 years, Sachdeva started his career as an actor after doing an intensive course in theatre from the National School of Drama in 1971. Three years later he joined Doordarshan as head of the drama section.

Posted in Amritsar, he used to watch lot of serials on Pakistan TV but nobody had heard of serials in India then. As an experiment, he decided to make a serial and in 1979 he made Chitta Lahu which was based on a Punjabi novel. While working for Doordarshan he was allowed to make serials for outside producers.

Thus he made the controversial serial Boond Boond and the popular children’s serial Lekhu and also directed a few episodes of Manju Singh’s Ek Kahani. He quit Doordarshan in 1989, directed a number of ad films, a couple of tele-films and finally opened a studio in Delhi which kept him busy for three years. With his involvement in Zee’s launch, things took a different turn and because of his love for making fiction, he finally shifted his base to Mumbai two years ago.

Sachdeva’s latest venture is Lakeeren which premiered on Zee’s afternoon band on October 12 (Tuesday, 2 p.m.). Lakeeren is based on the premise of destiny. Does man make his own destiny or does everything happens in his life as predetermined by a hidden power? If indeed the lines on one’s palm, the lines of bhagya, do determine what is going to happen in one’s life, do these same lines don’t change with the man himself struggling to live as he wishes? This constant conflict between fate and human efforts provides the backdrop to Lakeeren.

Portraying all the ups and downs in our lives, the joys and sorrows, the most intimate emotions connected with relationships and the conflicts within and with fellow beings, Lakeeren is set in a business family whose business fortunes go topsy-turvy because of a conflict between an adamant father and an equally adamant son.

A blend of conflict, changing fortunes, desires, aspirations, ambition and courage, Sachdeva says Lakeeren mirrors life and the constant conflict between human endeavour and destiny.

Ask Sachdeva why he has made another family drama after Zanjeerein and pat comes a reply that today the demand is for family drama because of satellite channels’ reach beyond the metros and big cities as cable television has made inroads in small cities and towns. “This change in audience profile in the recent past has created a huge demand for family dramas. That’s why serials like Amanat, Basera, Zanjeerein and Saath Saath are very popular today,” he explains. Well, with a quarter of a century in the television industry already behind him, one can be sure that Sachdeva has a firm finger on the pulse of TV audiences.

AL Chougule