Owner of production house Films and Shots and the producer of Aaj Ki Housewife Sab Jaanti Hai on Zee TV, Gulshan Sachdev is the one person who is struggling really hard to make people realise the importance of women who spend most of their lives in the kitchen. A constant fighter on television, Gulshan tries to explore different avenues in order to educate the masses. Once on the sets of Aaj Ki Housewife Sab Jaanti Hai, Tellychakkar.com corners Gulshan for a candid interview for our ‘Behind the Lens’ segment. Excerpts: Tell us something about yourself? (pauses) Well, I started my career in this industry by giving a shot for becoming an actor but luck had something else in mind for me as I got into direction. Having directed numerous shows, I later got into production. Besides the current Aaj Ki Housewife Hai… Sab Jaanti Hai, I have done around 8 to 9 shows for television namely Aap ki Aadalat, Jhoot Bole Kauwa Kaate and Raavan besides innumerable ad films. How has your journey been so far? (smiles) It has been a fantastic journey so far with still more yet to come and have enjoyed every moment of it. For me, every day is a new day which comes up with new challenges and I get to learn a lot many things. Tell us about the challenges one has to face on television? (pauses) See, television has evolved very drastically in terms of timing because earlier there used to be weekly shows that have now changed to dailies. Television is a continuous process and you have to work 24*7 for 365 days. The work speed has increased and the competition from day v/s day changed to channel v/s channel and now it has come to slot v/s slot (timing). As every single minute on television counts, similarly, every person on the sets from producer to spot boy or chaiwala etc are accountable. Makers of every show want their project to be successful and that is why everyone is striving hard to achieve higher ratings. Naturally, challenges are automatically set for one well in advance. Describe your job as a producer? As a producer, I have to first formulate my team by selecting the right people who will work in different departments, because one wrong person can spoil the whole project. In daily soaps, you have to be in constant touch with your team and see to it that every single movement on sets is proper. I can say that 50 per cent of a job is done by your equation with your team; the rest is done by homework allotted to different people. The producer also needs to be a part of creative department. One just cannot be called a producer because he signs the cheques but he has to be involved in his project as if he was nurturing his own baby. I am really happy that the equation among crew members of Housewife… is exemplary off screen. How do you handle competition? Well, it purely depends on what the scenario is, because nowadays people are behind TRP ratings. Since everyone wants to be on top, they work very hard to achieve their goal. In a lot of serials coming up, you will find a mix of bad and good ones. Everything depends on how you handle your pressure. Competition pushes you to do the best and so it is an important aspect according to me. I believe in sincerity and loyalty towards my job while competition does not make much of a difference to me. At the outset, were you scared of producing a show of your own? No, neither I was nor I am scared of producing any show because I fully trust my honesty and hard work. A channel gives us full liberty on what to do and I am a very optimistic person towards whatever I do, so the question of fear never arises. When do you feel to bring to an end a particular show? I see to the design of any show before giving it a start. We decide the start and end of any show very well in advance. What needs to been seen is the storyline which should have a broader dimension for it to work on television. Sometimes when anything goes wrong, you might have to change some character or do some alteration in the script. In the process the show gets a little affected. There is no formula of how the show will work or end, because the best of best serials have also suffered. Any advice you would want to give to aspiring producers? Be sincere, be dedicated, focus on whatever you do and automatically confidence will grow into you that will help you to achieve the heights. Your future plans? I would love to stick to television only.