Streaming platforms have diversified their content strategy over the past year and a half, moving beyond dark Action, Crime and Thriller (ACT) content to family-friendly dramas, romance and comedies that reflect cultural values, emotions, and everyday realities of small cities and towns. This shift, consultants and streaming platforms said, is aimed at connecting with a much wider and long-overlooked viewer base.

Web series such as Gram Chikitsalay, Mitti - Ek Nayi Pehchaan, Dupahiya (Amazon Prime Video), Ghar Wapsi and Thukra Ke Mera Pyaar (JioHotstar), Bada Naam Karenge (Sony LIV) and Pyaar Testing (Zee5) show this trend.

"Audiences from tier-2 and tier-3 cities are decisively shaping the next chapter of digital entertainment growth. We are expanding beyond metro-centric narratives and investing in stories rooted in regional ethos. This has led to deeper audience engagement,” said Raghavendra Hunsur, chief content officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises.

The share of content in the ACT genres in the total streaming content has reached a saturation point at 43%, shows data from media and entertainment research firm Ormax Media.

“India’s streaming content is currently dominated by shows in the action, crime and thriller genres. As platforms increase their subscriber base beyond tier-1 cities, we will see a clear rise in family-friendly content,” said Keerat Grewal, head of business development, streaming, TV and brands at Ormax Media.

Increasingly, as streaming platforms expand their presence beyond metros, family-friendly stories will find more takers as ACT content lacks broad appeal, said industry consultants.

"Streamers have been aware of the political system in India. There are limitations to storytelling. In this context, Action, Crime and Thriller (ACT) emerged as safe and exciting genres. Data insights also supported the demand for such content,’ said Shrirang Nargund, an independent consultant on streaming business. ‘But content in these genres does not have a broad appeal especially with the Indian family audience,’ he added.

Even the treatment of Indian ACT content has also been unsuitable for family viewing, pointed out industry veterans.

‘‘Streaming content especially in the crime genre is handled so well in the west. There is so much warmth in their crime content. But the treatment of Indian streaming content in the crime genre is too dark to the point of being repulsive. This is unsuitable for Indians, especially family audiences,’ explained Saurabh Varma, a veteran film marketing strategist.

While only 45% of Hindi web series are set in small towns and rural settings, they account for 60% of high engagement shows, according to Ormax Media research. Besides comforting optimism and emotional connection, a key factor which has worked for them is their rootedness.

A case in point is one of the most acclaimed Hindi web series, Panchayat, of Amazon Prime Video. In its fourth season, the series shows the experiences of an engineering graduate who settles for a low-paid job as a secretary of a gram panchayat in a fictional village of Uttar Pradesh. According to the data shared by Amazon Prime Video, India, Season Four of the series in its launch week was streamed in 95% of India’s PIN codes as well as in over 180 countries and territories.

“For us, genre is just a way of telling a story that explores a particular theme. This approach allows us to tell deeper, more nuanced stories rooted in local sensibilities, enabling a wide range of viewing experiences, be it individual, family, or community-based,” said Nikhil Madhok, director & head, Originals, at Prime Video, India.

Increasing share of connected televisions (watching streaming content on TV) in India has also boosted the share of family-friendly content on streamers. In the past five years, the number of connected TVs in Indian homes has jumped four times. According to Ormax Media, this has led to a shift from solo viewing of OTT content to family viewing, leading to more balanced content offerings.

In addition to this, streamers are of the view that increasing share of family-friendly content is largely a part of a diversification strategy.

“The strategy is to have a diversified content slate. With connected TVs, there is a propensity towards a little more ‘inclusive viewing’. In this context, most of our shows have been covering upcountry and other geographies,” said Sony LIV content head Saugata Mukherjee.

Industry consultants said streamers must rely more on writers’ creativity than data insights to produce content.

Family-friendly genres such as sci-fi and horror-comedy, which are under-explored, can help streamers to gain more subscribers, they said.

Actor Jameel Khan feels the phase he is in at this point of his career came after much effort. The Gullak actor, who played a progressive dad in Sooraj Barjatya’s web show Bada Naam Karenge recently, says, “The way things are in the industry is surely challenging, jo mil raha uss mein se best I am picking up. Everybody wants to make the best for themselves, the only thing I have in mind is to work with good makers.”

Jameel, who will be seen next in crime thriller series Mandala Murders, where he will shed his paternal image completely, feels that OTT platforms are facing “adulteration” just like films did: “No doubt every medium has its share of adulteration and OTT, too, is facing the heat, be it budget cut or dearth of stories, something similar that films have been going through. I, too, like many actors have been facing unprecedented requests to adjust but that’s not always possible. Andhadun paisa diya gaya logon ko when OTT took off, but if we work like machines the quality will suffer. Still, I feel OTT will pass the test as you don’t need to draw and earn unfathomable numbers at the box-office,” he says.

Jameel is happy to have finally got a chance to explore more roles. He adds, “Abhi tak jo bhi kaam ho raha tha, happened because of its own reasons. Bada Naam Karenge gave me the chance to play a father that had no similarities with Santosh Mishra (from Gullak). I would like to mention that it was never a conscious decision to think on the lines of image change as character roles are surely getting a lease of life on OTT.”

Before I sit down with Sooraj Barjatya, 61 — the director rightly deemed the father of the great Indian family drama, ever since the blockbuster success of his Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK, 1994) — I entertain an unusual thought in my head.

For decades, the gentle, reticent Sooraj has maintained a stoic, quiet public image. What if the actual man behind those conservative movies, dipped in shudh desi ghee, espousing love for mamaji, chachiji, samdhan, devar, is actually a wayward chiller, himself—given to slasher flicks at home, for his private pastime!

I playfully poke him with these fantasies, for this profile—asking him what he does for fun. He’s sweetly measured, as usual. For his hobby, he says, “I am right now into Puranas, reading the Gita, [Tulsidas’s] Ramcharitmanas; that’s my time for fun, when I am actually by myself.”

With Sooraj, what you see is what you get. There is no fakeness. We can see that. In fact, back circa 2001, he recalls, he had once gone over to Fire ‘n’ Ice, a popular nightclub in Mumbai’s Lower Parel. Director Farah Khan spotted him there. She instantly called up Karan Johar, wholly shocked: “Look, who’s here!”

Sooraj was with his wife, Vineeta. They retreated to a nightclub corner, where another partygoer simply asked him to please leave, bellowing: “Yeh [jagah] hum paapi logon ke liye hai [This place is for sinners],” Sooraj laughs.

The filmmaker was actually at a discotheque, in a sense, researching for his forthcoming film then, Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (MPKDH, 2003).

Which he wished to make, feeling the need to reflect something more trendy/hip. This is soon after Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), an adaptation of the Ramayan, set in an Indian joint family.

Sooraj was in his “early thirties”, looking for a reset. He sacked his traditional music composer, Raam Laxman; brought onboard Anu Malik. For the lead cast, he had Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, instantly ready for the roster.

He says, “I feel so guilty towards all of them. Because they gave me everything. But while making that film, I realized, I am not there. This is not me. I was asking others, if they’d like what I’m making!”

A big feedback came to him from Bollywood’s resident pop-philosopher, actor Govinda. Sooraj says, “Govinda Ji sweetly met me [after MPKDH] to say that hits, flops come to everyone. That’s not the point.

“But, he told me, everyone has a purpose—ghode ka apna kaam hota hai, sheep ka apna kaam hota hai, sabka apna kaam hota hai. These words of wisdom stayed with me so much, that I then made Vivah [2006]. From that film onwards, I stopped wanting to be someone else. Then I can go to a night club to observe, and that’s good enough—but not try and become that person. It’s a liberating thought.”

MPKDH bombed in the theatres. Vivah had a “silver-jubilee [25-week] run in 125 cinemas, across the country.” Perhaps the last such film. To the point that the term ‘silver jubilee’ itself may be lost on the present generation of filmgoers.

But that’s how family films work—Sooraj, who’s also the bossman of Rajshri Pictures, the fountainhead of desi family entertainers, for over 75-plus years, explains its footfall math.

For one, he confesses, his core audience are women. They’re the ones who bring the family into theatres, in the first place. Sooraj says he’s deeply conscious of their tastes—even literally.

For instance, “Observe the food in our films. I make it a point that they’re carefully shot like advertising. In Maine Pyar Kiya [MPK, 1989], when Laxmikant Berde has to carry a tokri of puris, we kept reshooting it, because the puris had to be properly full-blown, on every take.”

Secondly, Sooraj distinguishes the mainstream family film, from a massy actioner. The latter gets the excited audiences right from Day One, for the first dib.

For example, “One would go to see a Dhoom 2, first. Which is what happened at Jaipur’s Raj Mandir theatre, where it replaced Vivah. But after eight weeks [once the audiences had seen Dhoom 2], Vivah was back for a 35-week run. People keep telling [others, about a family entertainer], and people coming, slowly, slowly...”

That’s the Rajshri experience. Sooraj recalls, “I’m going back to 1969. Two films released that year. One was Jigri Dost and the other, Jeene Ki Raah, from LV Prasad Ji’s banner. Both were with Jeetu Ji [Jeetendra], who was a big star. Jigri Dost had a house-full, whereas Jeene Ki Raah barely had collections in its fourth week.”

“L V Prasad Ji called up my grandfather [Tarachand Barjatya] to ask, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ He calmed him down, ‘You did no wrong. That’s Jigri Dost, and people will watch it first; it’s glamorous. Yours is Jeene Ki Raah, that audiences will visit, aaram se [in due course of time].’ That’s exactly what happened.”

The analogy Sooraj uses sort of settles the debate: “One is the new McDonald’s [in your neighbourhood]. But then, you have to come down to Maharaja Bhog [eventually].”

This is the theatrical thumb-rule, from those who’ve known them better. I suspect the same theory might apply to content on OTT platforms as well.

Wherein a new, flashy movie/show on a streamer catches full-on attention as the talking point on the first weekend. As if it’ll disappear after. Only, that sustainable content stays to be discovered, or rediscovered, forever.

Consider the Gen Z/Young Adult family (romantic) drama, Bada Naam Karenge (BNK), on SonyLIV. That’s the web series that Sooraj has turned show-runner with.

It bears the Rajshri stamp, like nothing you’ve watched on a streamer so far—large network of families, a sense of innocence among the young, flavour of small towns Ratlam, Ujjain, Indore…

Shailesh Kapoor, from the content tracking agency Ormax, I noticed, called the series a potential “game-changer” for the home-viewing ecosystem. I can see why. For years, the Rajshris weren’t entertained in the OTT scene; as Sooraj recalls, “They were looking for something edgier.” 

BNK is a family series, quite separate from the over-the-top, overlong, swish-pan saas-bahu serials of Star Plus, that dominated Indian TV, 2000 onwards. It’s about subtle, real, young love, in the times of Corona.

What I was struck by is its unpretentious simplicity. It’s possible that you haven’t seen the series. It’s more possible that families will chance upon it at some point, while the word spreads.

The show features two lovely, debuting lead actors, Ayesha Kaduskar, Ritik Ghanshani—part of families that are loving, but conservative. And as it happens with the latter, extra-possessive of their young.

Their transgression is that they once lived together in a big city, out of a circumstance, given COVID-19. Their graver transgression, to me, for a Rajshri product, is they even drink at a party together!

Sooraj laughs, “Well, there is only one party-scene. And even there, I kept telling [director] Palash [Vaswani], if we can set it during Holi, and therefore thandai being passed around.”

It’s a world that Sooraj knows, because he spent a lot of time at his maternal grandparents’ home in Agra, growing up. Also, he says, his own Mumbai home mirrors that same joint family set-up/culture, including the youngest generations.

In the sense, more particularly, of the Marwari community, that the protagonists of BNK belong to. As does Sooraj.

Who, I find to be a fascinating lot—originally from a 50-odd kilometre radius in Rajasthan; spread across the country, broadening their business empires locally, retaining their filial and commercial connections globally.

Sooraj argues, “[Marwaris] are an amalgamation of the entire Bharat. We love to have a lot of money. But there are very few of us in the film business. Because we want to be safe. Before we invest anything, we must know how much we are going to get back. This is very difficult in this profession. Especially, creativity doesn’t come first to us. We know how to make money, out of money. But I think [Barjatyas] had to be here. And we had to tell some stories.”

Before there was fake news, there were quiz masters, who made up facts for questions at inter-school/college competitions. And since Internet hadn’t deepened enough to verify the supposedly right answer, we just won/lost points, from our guesses, and moved on.

One such question asked to my team, I remember, was the visual of a female actor in a song, perhaps from Janwar (1965), ‘Tum se accha kaun hai’.

Question: Who’s the actor, and what’s her relevance to Bollywood history? Answer: Rajshree, V Shantaram’s daughter, on whom Rajshri Pictures is named. This was during college/school. Although I won’t find that phony quiz-master again, it’s taken me years to prove this as fake fact/news.

Sooraj tells me Rajshri Productions is named after his paternal aunt, Rajshri Saraogi (nee Barjatya), who was born the same year the film company was founded by his grandfather, Tarachand. That date being August 15, 1947—making Rajshri exactly as old as independent India!

The company was founded in Kolkata, which is where young Tarachand moved to, from “Kuchaman, a small estate in Rajasthan.”

The only thing Tarachand ever wanted, Sooraj says, was to earn well for his mother: “She came from a poor background, she couldn’t eat  well in her sasural. And he wanted to provide for her. That ambition drew him to Calcutta.”

Tarachand found a job as a manager in a Bengali film company, Chamaria Pictures, where he performed rather well. Except, as his family grew, he wished to expand, and go his own.

The company allowed him to pursue his side-gigs, alongside. Which is how Tarachand started a small arm, distributing films for Central Provinces-Berar, a tiny province of British India. But what films could he start with?

Sooraj says, “My grandfather would get tears in his eyes, when he’d tell me about Gemini Pictures, and Shri S S Vasan, in Madras.”

Basically, Vasan/Gemini Pictures had made a huge blockbuster, Chandralekha (1948). Tarachand urged them to dub it in Hindi. Vasan was unsure—who would watch a non-star cast pic across India?

Tarachand persuaded him nonetheless, including shooting portions of the film, with actors originally mouthing some lines in Hindi. Once done, Vasan offered “all India distribution rights of Chandralekha” to Tarachand. 

It’s something the young entrepreneur couldn’t believe. “Chandralekha was the Baahubali of its times, or what Pushpa would be today,” Sooraj recalls. Such is how Rajshri entered the big league, subsequently setting up distribution offices across North India.

Similarly acquiring films from the South, for nation-wide releases, with Hindi dubs. Essentially, what’s now called the pan-India release.

And then, of course, they combined it with distributing popular Hindi titles, having established a deep trade-network.

Rajshri entered film production, only in the early 1960s. That’s the business Sooraj’s father, Raj Kumar Barjatya, oversaw. Their breakthrough was Dosti (1964), starring two unknown male leads, Sudhir Kumar, Sushil Kumar, with a phenomenal soundtrack, that continues to resonate.

Sooraj says, “Dosti took everyone by surprise. People first said, who would watch? It’s a black and white film. Langde andhe ki picture hai [it’s about a blind and lame man]. But my grandfather was spiritually inclined, and he was convinced.”

Throughout his career, Tarachand would visit The Mother at her ashram in Pondicherry with his film ideas. She had decreed that he only make films that “elevate the consciousness of humans/society.”

Dosti was one of them. He never looked back after.  Sooraj remembers, “As a child, I’d be on story sessions with my grandfather, listening to all the top commercial pictures, and he’d say, ‘It’s a superhit film, but of no use to us.’ I used to wonder, if it’s super-hit, why is it of no use to us? So, then, he took me over to our company emblem, that is [Goddess] Saraswati. And he told me, ‘Jo yahan banega usmein Saraswati ka vaas hona zaroori hai [Saraswati must reside in whatever gets made here]’.”

The script of Rajshri mainly drew from Indian literature. The directors were relatively lesser known. Also, since, as Sooraj puts it, the celebrated ones would want to produce their own films. 

But, more importantly, as he says, the lead actors in those films couldn’t be the popular hero-heroines of the times. The subjects were such. The superstars could simply not slip in.

He says, “For example, if you see Uphaar [1971]. There’s a crazy girl. Now, you can’t just put any star in there. You need someone without a screen image. Or a film like Geet Gaata Chal [1975], about a teenager. How can you put ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ in a teenage role? It has to be a newcomer. Those were the subjects we picked.”

For instance, Amitabh Bachchan did star in a Rajshri film, Saudagar (1973). But this is right before Zanjeer (1973). Which made his ‘angry young man’ stardom too big to fit into a Barjatya vehicle.

It took Bachchan almost 50 years to feature again in a Rajshri production, aged 79, with Uunchai (2022), directed by Sooraj; about friends, who are family.

What Rajshri mastered was essentially “the non-star film” that, in turn, gave debutants breaks into an industry that has perennially faced the insider-outsider divide.

As Sooraj says, “I can go on listing the breaks from Rajshri: first film of Sanjay Khan, Jaya Bachchan Ji, Rakhee Ji… We can go down to Mithun [Chakraborty] Da’s first commercial picture; Raj Babbar Ji’s first film was signed with us. Naseeruddin [Shah] sir’s first commercial film…”

It’s astounding alright. What’s equally astounding about Rajshri that I had heard, years ago, is they’ve had a rather precise rule-book of sorts, detailing stuff you can/can’t do in a Rajshri film. This is besides that the whole family should be able to watch the film together.

For instance, Commandment #1: You can’t have a villain in a Rajshri film. The ‘circumstance’ is the villain! Commandment #2: There should be no action. And if there is a required action sequence, the number of punches cannot exceed 14!

Not 13, not 15; 14, to be sure. No, wait, is this really true? Guess what, Sooraj says, “Yes, it is,” and asks me how I know. Actually, I have no clue how I know!

Sooraj smiles, “My grandfather and father’s point was that since the villain is a must—it’s best if it can be a circumstance. We don’t need to have too much of violence, hence.

“HAHK: Bhabhi (Renuka Shahane) dies. That’s all there is to it. She slips. It’s a circumstance. MPK: Currency notes get destroyed by water. Poor boy, so that is a circumstance. Now, Uunchai: The heroes want to climb up [a mountain]. There, age is the circumstance [for an antagonist]. As for 14 punches in an action sequence—that was told to me while making MPK, because I was a young man, and the action director can go on, with a fight sequence [if you don’t put a cap to it]. So, 14 punches. That’s it.”

And it’s not that the rules have always been followed, though. Sooraj admits, “Whenever we have deviated, it hasn’t quite gone down well.”

I bring up his last film with Salman Khan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), for instance. He says, “Salman and I can see through each other. The first draft [of Prem Ratan] that I took to him, he said, why are we complicating things; go for simple. Yet, I put some action into it, because I wanted to [serve his audience]. I tried to play it safe. I should have just made a straight emotional affair. The film did well. But when I look at it now, I don’t like to see the climax.”

While Rajshri has been around since 1947, Sooraj was the first member from his family firm to actually direct films. His late father, Raj—better known as Raj Babu in film-industry circles—he says, “had modelled himself on Irving Thalberg of MGM Studios.”

But he had the eye/ear for great stories. And what Raj Babu left behind for Sooraj is actually a detailed file, with plot-points from movies he’s liked—whether from Rajshri or other productions.

Knowing his son’s natural inclinations as director, Raj Babu felt the file would serve as the North Star for subjects to pick. One of the notings, for instance, is where Uunchai came from.

I never got a chance to interact with Raj Babu. I do remember observing him once, from a distance, at a talk by Hollywood’s top screenwriting guru, Syd Field. Everybody was listening. I noticed Raj Babu, sitting down like a student, taking copious notes, instead. Which is ironic, only for the fact that if Syd Field, a stickler for the three-act screenplay structure, ever watched Raj Babu’s idea for Sooraj, HAHK—he could still flip in his grave.  Now, that’s a film, without a conflict, up until its final 30 minutes, that defied all logic of screenwriting.

Sooraj says, “The [HAHK] structure originally belongs to [Rajshri’s] Nadiya Ke Paar [1982]. We owe it to K P Mishra’s novel, Kohbar Ki Shart. Which was a textbook in Agra University. My father had read the book. And if you relate the novel to HAHK, Madhuri [Dixit’s character] gets married to Mohnish [Bahl’s character]. What follows is a massive drought in the village, where everyone dies. That’s the third act. My father didn’t like that [final] part of the story.”

So, technically, HAHK was without a third act. Hardly ever has a film been loved more. Madhuri Dixit was its superstar. Incidentally, she had also debuted in a Rajshri production, Abodh (1984), where Sooraj was an assistant.

Back then, Sooraj was given the charge of counting Madhuri’s bangles on the sets of Abodh. Which is when his mother had come to visit.

She was dead against him turning into a director, which she felt was a financially unsafe pursuit. She would’ve liked him to own/run studio-floors instead.

Back home, she admonished Sooraj, “Is this what you’re going to do in life—count bangles?” Sooraj’s dad, with a filmmaking bone of his own, fully betted on his son.

This was at a time when Rajshri were at their financial lowest. Mad actioners had taken over Indian screens. Middle-class audience stayed in to watch films on video players, that made for a more comfortable home entertainment. It was a novelty.

The 1980s, being no different from 2025, with the cycle repeating. And people hitting theatres, only for spectacle as cinema, and bingeing on OTT platforms, at home, for everything else. It’s a phase, of course.

That said, Raj Babu and Sooraj could see the revival of musicals with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and the like, in Hollywood. That’s the genre Sooraj picked for his first film, a young romance, while he’d only just turned 20.

MPK became a sensation. It revived Rajshri. A condition that Sooraj’s mother had laid before him turning director was that he must get married first.

Which is what he did at 21. HAHK followed. I wonder if he put all that he saw at his own wedding into HAHK! Sooraj says, “That, and so many other family weddings I had been to.”

HAHK is packed with songs and anecdotes, as in kissa, as against story, or kahaani. The beauty of the film is, of course, the space it accords the ensemble cast.

You have Salman [back from MPK] standing in a corner of scenes, while the samdhi, samdhan, mama, chacha, etc, take centre-stage! And this can only happen, because the new superstar had already trusted the director Sooraj’s conviction once.

They first met, because a model, Shabana Dutt, who had also tested for a role in MPK, didn’t land the part, but recommended Salman.

Sooraj recalls, “Salman thought he’d be given dhoti and bansuri for his role, because those are the films Rajshri used to make. He heard the script slouched on his seat, and straightened up only once he heard the ‘Kabootar jaa’ segment. But his auditions didn’t go well. His voice had no throw.”

Choreographer Farah Khan, Salman’s friend, came over to help him with the dance auditions. That bombed too. It’s just that once Sooraj got him to pose to the Rishi Kapoor romantic song ‘Oh hansini’, he could see a debutant heartthrob.

Only, that Salman was already appearing as a second-lead in a mid-tier film [Biwi Ho To Aisi]. Newcomer lead was a must. All this while, Salman kept sending Sooraj pictures of his friends he could cast instead.

Even when Sooraj went over to an ad shoot to finally express regret to Salman for MPK, the actor continued to introduce blokes on the set that he should have for the film!

Sooraj says he was floored by the “genuineness of a human being, first.” It had to be Salman. The rest is history.

Which, I realize, actually goes back to one more generation! Sooraj says, “Salim [Khan] Saab [Salman’s father] tells me he owes his move to Bombay, also to Rajshri Productions. He lived in Indore. That’s where the wedding of my tauji/uncle [Kamal Kumar Barjatya] was being held. Salim Saab said he was a ‘struggler’ then. He knew there would be lots of film dignitaries at the wedding. So, he came to see [having gate-crashed]. There, he met producer, Mr. K Amarnath, who told him, ‘Hero banega? Aaja Bombay!”

And he came to Bombay.

OTT shows have primarily become about personal viewing experiences. As filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya forays into the OTT world with Bada Naam Karenge, he hopes the nine-episode series will take people back to the culture of family viewing. In conversation with mid-day, the showrunner talks about making content for Gen Z, why his projects always boast of green-flag characters, and how a section of OTT viewers misses family dramas.

It was narrated to us by S Manasvi; he came up with the concept in 2013. We were [struggling] with the climax then. In 2020, when we had a meeting with Sony LIV, they wanted a Rajshri show. They wanted to recreate the world of Hum Saath Saath Hain [1999] and Vivah [2006] on OTT. So we met Manasvi, and cracked the story. I’m grateful that the streamer backed our vision. The other [platforms] told us that OTT is a younger and urban space.

It’s about a boy from Ratlam, who wants to expand the family business and a woman from Ujjain, who wants to do her Masters in microbiology. They are not able to fit in, in Mumbai nor are they able to fit in where they come from. The story is about how they fall in love.

After the pandemic, a lot of people have moved on to the fire stick. But there are many who want to see something different, who are not happy reading subtitles or watching gore. I believe there is an audience for everything. So, why shouldn’t I make a romantic family drama? I think it’s the right time for us to enter with Bada Naam Karenge.

The platform was clear that they wanted to bring the audience from Tier II and III. The best thing about the project was to get Gullak director Palash [Vaswani] as a director. He comes from this world and is experienced. We’ve made a lot of films and television shows, but he guided us on how it is different from television. It took us almost a year to write, two years to get this project through, and post-production took another six months. The web is a beautiful medium to tell a story.

I think [we] will and we should. It is a necessity of the day. If you talk to the OTT platforms, the money is missing. [So, we need] everyone to come together and watch. Today big televisions screens are back. This culture has to come back where everyone watches content together. For my movies, youngsters would come less to theatres. But they’d come to show the film to their grandparents and parents. That is what we are aiming at.

Here, we are catering to the audience that wants [fast-paced] content. That is the world Palash has brought. I feel we try to show youngsters as kids who are partying, taking drugs, drinking or smoking, but that’s not true. I look at my own kids who make mistakes, are stressed, but they rise again. I think Gen Z will connect with the story, especially kids from small towns, the Bharat.

In this show, they are not entirely green flags. But a lot of people tell me that my [depiction] isn’t the reality. I feel at least one in 10 would be [like my characters], but they don’t show that because they want to fit in. I want to show dreams. If we are only going to show how bad society is, what are we showing our kids? My daughter is 26 and wants to get married, but she doubts [the kind of partner she’ll get]. If they are not [like my characters], at least they can try to be and they may get a Poonam [Amrita Rao’s character in Vivah]. 

(From left) Ritik Ghanshani, Ayesha Kaduskar and Palash Vaswani on the set of Bada Naam Karenge. Pics/Instagram

He says Sooraj Barjatya wanted to collaborate with him because the veteran filmmaker loved how he brought simplicity to the screen. However, for director Palash Vaswani of Gullak fame, it was a dream come true. Vaswani had always wanted to create a love story, but making a show with the signature Rajshri touch while ensuring it remained relatable across all age groups was a challenge. Bada Naam Karenge commenced in April and concluded filming in October. However, the team spent nine months refining the script before beginning production.

In conversation with mid-day, Vaswani discusses how he drew inspiration from real-life stories of people from small towns to shape the narrative, what he learnt from Barjatya, and how he expresses himself through his storytelling. Edited excerpts from the interview.

The series is my tribute to Maine Pyar Kiya [1989]. I still love watching the film. These kinds of stories are missing from screens nowadays. You no longer see innocent romances with a couple in the foreground and the family in the background. The kind of storytelling seen in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge [1995], Hum Aapke Hain Koun [1994], and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai [1998] is absent in the Hindi film belt, though it still exists in south films. This was my attempt to revive that genre.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani [2023] is a similar film, but there was a long gap before it. The last such film I remember is Kal Ho Naa Ho [2003]. Today, if I wish to tell that kind of story, how do I narrate it? I must use a contemporary approach with new voices, so that it resonates with people. The OTT audience is quite young, so connecting with them first—who may then share it with their parents—makes the series ideal for community watching.

I come from a small town, Raipur, though I have lived in Mumbai since 2007, so I understand the dynamics in both places. Films today do not focus on relatability. If you watch Premalu [2024], it precisely fills that gap; Hridayam [2022] is also a pure college romance. These stories were once told in Hindi cinema but not anymore. Such people exist and are in the majority, yet we do not create content they can relate to. This is why people from the Hindi belt increasingly connect with south movies.

Raipur has a significant Marwari community. They are business-oriented and wealthy. While they can afford to send their children abroad, they often send them only to Pune. These children do not admit to drinking alcohol or dating because their parents wouldn’t understand and would judge them morally. This happened to a friend’s brother. Similarly, another friend fell in love with a girl he was stuck with during the lockdown for 15 days. For him, those 15 days felt like a film. We are confident people will relate to our show, just like how they reacted to Gullak.

Sooraj sir must have seen my work in Gullak [seasons 2 and 3], and people from SonyLIV recommended me. I received a call from Rajshri Productions, stating that Sooraj sir wanted to meet me. Despite being a towering personality, he is simple and clear about his vision and what he wants to convey. He told me he loved Gullak and that not everyone could capture simplicity the way I did. When he narrated Bada Naam Karenge, the story resonated with me, particularly as I come from a small town. Moreover, I had always wanted to make a love story, and the chance to work with him was unmissable. 

I learnt how to tell a story in a massy way and reach a wider audience by focusing on content. S. Mansvi, Sooraj sir, Vidit Tripathi [writer of Gullak season 4], and I worked on the story for nine months. I was insistent that we perfect the script on paper before starting production. We rewrote several drafts until we were confident, only then moving to pre-production. Since it was a Rajshri project, it needed their signature touch, so Sooraj sir was involved during pre-production. On set, he observed but never interfered, even when I sought his direction. 

Casting took six months because we needed actors who believed in the story. We chose newcomers to avoid expectations nor will the audience have any preconceived notion about them. The leads, [Ritik Ghanshani and Ayesha Kaduskar], were superb and carried the strong themes effortlessly.  

During a table read, Kanwaljit [Singh] sir had a scene where he had to cry, but he felt his character wouldn’t. However, I insisted because the climax depended on it. In my stories, men cry. I think I am unable to emote so these emotions come out in my story. He agreed to do it both ways, but after one take, he was convinced by my vision. Watching him perform that scene brought tears to everyone’s eyes.