MUMBAI: With popular shows like "Devon Ke Dev Mahadev", "Jodha Akbar", "The Adventures of Hatim", and "Siya Ke Ram", to name a few, to his credit as the director, who would have thought that Jay Prakash Sharma became a director by sheer chance.

Talking about his background, he shared, "I come from a simple family. My father was a taxi driver and I came into the industry as a learner assistant director and my first show was 'Om Namah Shivay'. I worked without payment for almost 10 months."

"It was never about passion for me. I came into direction accidentally, and my first major break was 'Devon Ke Dev Mahadev' which starred Mohit Raina in the lead role," he added.

Sharma is currently directing "Vighnaharta Ganesha" on Sony Entertainment Television, and thanks Lord Ganesha for giving him the show. 

"Before the Ganesh festival in September, I was doing a Marathi show called 'Deva Shree Ganesha'. I did around 11 episodes of the show. And just after the Visarjan during Ganesh Chaturthi, I got 'Vighnaharta Ganesha'. This couldn't have been a coincidence and I felt that Ganesh ji gave me both these shows," he said.

"It's Lord Ganesha's blessings on me. 'Vighnaharta Ganesha' has been doing well for the past three years and has a very good rating too. Joining such a show was a good thing in itself and then the show is also called 'Vighnaharta Ganesha', which means Ganesha will take away all your problems," he added. 

Having done other mythological shows like "Devon Ke Dev Mahadev" and 'Siya Ke Ram'', Sharma feels his current show is different from them, and said, "I believed that this show won't be different from the other mythological shows that I have done. But it is. Only after joining it, I got to know the stories of lord Ganesha which I was not aware of." 

Sharma has also directed shows like "Porus", "Naagin 2", "Prem Ya Paheli – Chandrakanta", "Naagarjuna – Ek Yoddha" and "Chandragupta Maurya", and confessed that the working environment has changed a lot because of COVID.

"Before COVID when we were shooting we never had any concern about anything except how to get our work done. But after COVID it's like along with getting our work done, we have to look after so many things and have to take precautions, like social distancing, wearing a mask," he concluded.