After three hit serials on Indian television, he is now all set with his fourth venture Jyoti Astitva, Saat Phere and Balika Vadhu — three hit serials.What’s your winning formula?
There are no shortcuts to success. Honesty in telling the story and your integrity towards the story is all that will help you succeed. My aim is to write stories that appeal to people and target a wider section of society. In all the three serials, there is an attempt to say something. All these stories have had a purpose. Mere rambling of dialogues and ridiculous use of camera angles don’t make these serials.

When most producers aim at domestic dramas, you havechosen to deal with socially relevant issues.
Characters have to be real, and to make them real, you need to have real-life situations. Television is probably the best way to reach out to a mass audience and tell them what happens in various parts of India. For example, through Balika Vadhu, we wanted to get to people’s notice that the age-old practice of child marriage still persists in India. Through Astitva, I wanted to show how important it is for a woman to have her own standing in society.

What are the things you bear in mind while scripting a serial?
To make my characters identifiable. According to me, human relationships are the most dramatic. So one does not need to introduce vamps to make the drama intense, instead just concentrate on making your characters plausible.

What is your next venture Jyoti on NDTV Imagine all about?
It’s about a middle-class family in an urban setting. The story will revolve around the eldest daughter of the family. What strikes me about Jyoti is, when we look around, we will find hundreds of Jyotis everywhere. She is a common girl.

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