For years, Shekhar Suman (63) ruled the late-night airwaves as a pioneer of Indian television satire with Movers & Shakers (1997). Yet, when he consciously stepped away, a vacuum remained. For the veteran, returning after a 14-year hiatus did not feel like a comeback.

Rejecting the word as a “stereotype”, he explains: “Agar main doctor hoon, aur kuch din mareez nahin dekh raha hoon, iska matlab yeh nahin hai ki main doctor nahin hoon. Kuch aise halaat hote hain jiski wajah se ek gap aa jaata hai. (If I am a doctor and I haven’t seen patients for a few days, that doesn’t mean I stop being a doctor. Sometimes circumstances create a gap.) So I never believe in comeback. I was always there and now, I just decided to be in front of the camera.”

The transition back to the studio floor for his new show Shekhar Tonite felt seamless: “The day I faced the camera for the show, mujhe laga main to kal hi chorr ke gaya tha. (I felt like I had left only yesterday.) It didn’t feel like a 14-year-gap.”

He walked away from Movers & Shakers at the height of its success. “I was getting complacent,” he admits. “As an actor, I wanted to explore characters and not do just one thing. I wanted to write poetry, direct a film, travel, do gardening, explore my culinary talent.”

However, persistent public yearning eventually shifted his perspective. “Movers & Shakers kabhi khatam hi nahin hua. (Movers & Shakers never really ended.) So this show is an extension, because Movers & Shakers rules people’s minds and hearts even today.” My son (Adhyayan Suman; actor-director) said, ‘If people love it and want it so much, why don’t you give it to them? It’s your responsibility.’ That became a catalyst.”

To launch the new property on YouTube, Shekhar backed a complete departure from traditional television networks — a landscape he feels has devolved significantly. “TV mein do hi kism ke log hain — moorkh aur maha moorkh (There are only two kinds of people in television — fools and bigger fools), so why listen to them or take diktat from them?”

Shekhar says bluntly, adding, “OTT bhi barbaad ho gaya (OTT has also gone to ruin), and there’s barely any freedom there. To thrive in a creative field, you need absolute freedom, and YouTube offers you that. Yahan, aap apni saltanat ke badshah hain. Here, you are the king of your own kingdom. It feels liberating.”

This philosophy carries over into his treatment of high-profile guests. Utilising lifelong industry relationships, a single phone call is usually enough to book distinguished figures, though Shekhar maintains a strict code of hospitality.

“Aap kisi bhi mehmaan ko apne ghar bulaate hain, toh ek maryaada zaruri hai. When you invite a guest into your home, a certain decorum is necessary. I will never ask them questions to embarrass them. I know where to draw a line.”

On stage, the script remains a fluid canvas for his signature wit: “Since I make the script myself, I manage to improvise it. While talking, a lot of things come to my head, and I paraphrase. So, there’s a lot of spontaneity.”

Navigating the modern digital landscape also meant adapting to Gen Z without artificially catering to them.

“You don’t have to make an effort to cater. Let them understand. This generation is very smart. And things like bhajan clubbing indicate that they are going back to where they belong,” Shekhar observes. The entire production crew behind Shekhar Tonite consists of Gen Z individuals. “They didn’t know anything about Movers & Shakers. But when they did their homework and researched about it, they are all so happy now and are enjoying every bit of the political satire.” Surviving the era of cancel culture and internet trolls requires a thick skin. Shekhar views trolling as an unfortunate byproduct of digital access.

“Thanks to easy access because of Instagram and YouTube, etc people enjoy being trolls and they have a sadistic streak. So resilience is key. The best thing is to not pay attention to fools.”

He remains unfazed by industry jealousy or coordinated campaigns: “Whenever someone excels, there will be a group of people who will try to pull you down, especially if you are talented. When you do good work, the mediocrity around you gets exposed. And those people try to pull you down. But that doesn’t bother me.”

Shekhar attributes the reality of this revival to his son’s execution: “If Adhyayan wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m grateful to him, because he is the boss now. He has taken over everything, including my Instagram (laughs). But I’m fine with it. Waqt ke sath chalna bahut zaruri hai. It is very important to move with the times.”

As the driving force behind the camera, Adhyayan (38) spent years watching his father’s legacy sit on the shelf. “As a creator and an artiste myself, I realised I needed to step up and bring the show back to make sure this man took his throne. He was an undisputed pioneer of the format,” he says.

The road to bringing Shekhar Tonite to life was paved with closed doors, including four years spent chasing traditional TV executives.

“The last phone call of a studio head said, ‘Huge SS (Shekhar Suman) fan, bro. I grew up watching him’. But the undertone was that he wasn’t sure if Shekhar ji was relevant anymore,” Adhyayan recalls.

Bypassing television entirely, he self-funded the show with zero advertisers: “I thought of YouTube because I was tired of knocking on doors. It gets frustrating as a creator to just keep begging.”

On set, their dynamic shifts into a space of intense professional focus. “I’m the only person who can go to dad and tell him: ‘I don’t like this, or let’s cut this take out and do another one’. When we work together, it’s serious business,” Adhyayan notes. It is a collaboration that Shekhar fully embraces: “Adhyayan is my biggest strength. This is the most fruitful and beautiful collaboration that I’ve ever had in my life. I love the fact that he’s calling the shots on the sets. And as an actor, I surrender. I can’t be like, ‘Tum humein bataoge humein kaise dekhna hai?’ You’re going to tell me how I should look? (laughs) I just follow his instructions and things are so smooth working with him.” Having never had an industry Godfather, Adhyayan dismisses mainstream nepotism debates as irrelevant to his reality.

“I find the conversation about nepotism irrelevant, because I had to build everything on my own from scratch. It took me 17 years to find the door to start the journey.”

Talking about the projects in the pipeline, Adhyayan shares: “I plan to make Dekh Bhai Dekh next and I am already in talks with [director] Anand Mahendroo ji for the same. There’s also a reality show I am working on. As an actor, I have two releases this year. I’m also debuting as a director this year with a film called Main Na Raha Mera. I have four music albums releasing this year and I also have a clothing brand called Dutchess Kumari, which is eight months old. I am building my own world.”