Showing posts with label MTV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MTV. Show all posts
Missing the beat: MTV’s OG crew recalls their wildest years
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’90s kids remember when MTV was the boss of cool. Malaika hosted Loveline, Cyrus hosted Bakra. As MTV shuts down some of its channels globally, we’ve hit Rewind
Rachana Parekh (HINDUSTAN TIMES; February 27, 2026)
First, let’s get one thing out of the way. MTV is going nowhere. Last year, Paramount Global announced that in some countries, the channel will stop broadcasting by December 25. Millennials around the world dropped their TV remote in panic. Turns out, the company was referring only to sub-channels such as MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live. Regular MTV continues, in India too, though we’re not sure who’s really watching.
The channel has been playing here for 30 years. At its peak, MTV was that glorious spot that filled the years between Chitrahaar on Doordarshan and YouTube on the internet. How else were Indians to know that Michael Jackson was the monster all along in his Thriller video? Or that Milind Soman was going to pop out of the wooden box in Alisha Chinai’s Made In India? Or that it was two grandpas who were actually singing Macarena?
Right off, MTV was always more than music. For a generation coming into its own in the 1990s, it was a rebellious older sibling who spoke their language, played their anthems, understood their angst. Sure, MTV played rock, pop and hip-hop. But it also taught a generation how to speak, dress, joke, rebel and belong.
Mumbai writer Shubarna Mukherjee Shu, 43, remembers sitting in front of the living room TV in 1999, landline in hand, when MTV’s Most Wanted played the top songs of the moment. “My friends and I would be on a conference call, collectively praying,” for any song from the Backstreet Boys’ album Millennium to air. “When they finally played one, we’d scream-sing along on the phone. It made our day.”
This kind of magic didn’t happen by chance. Here’s how it all was all part of a grand design.
Forever young
MTV India announced itself with swagger. In January 1996, Slash from Guns N’ Roses flew to Bangalore to jam with Indus Creed at the channel’s launch. Months later, MTV partnered with Michael Jackson for the Mumbai stop on his HIStory World Tour. There was an 11-city roadshow, MTV Get It, making stops on college campuses and getting a sense of what young India was all about.
“The Indian music industry was not developed,” says Seher Bedi, who joined MTV in 1995 as a producer, one of the first employees at the channel. “We had singers and bands, but no music videos. Outside India, nobody knew these artists existed.”
The team started from scratch, shooting videos, packaging live gigs, creating sets. “In that first year, the buzz was insane,” Bedi recalls. “Audiences went crazy when we just showed up to record concerts.”
The graduating class of Indian pop — Alisha Chinai, Daler Mehndi, Lucky Ali, Shaan and Sagarika, KK, Sonu Nigam, Euphoria, Colonial Cousins, Indian Ocean and more — all built their fame on airplay on MTV, and rival Channel [V].
“A R Rahman wasn’t known outside the south then,” recalls Cyrus Broacha, who hosted shows on the channel until 2008. “We were shooting Maa Tujhe Salaam in the desert, and I told him, ‘Bring that bag from the corner.’ I had no idea he’d become this colossal figure. Back then, he was just a colleague.”
International music was funnelled into simplified segments: Unplugged for acoustic recordings; Alternative Nation for indie and alt genres; Headbangers Ball for noisy metal and rock; Select for viewers requests. And, in a move that left Millennials ever grateful, MTV flashed the song’s name, artist, album and often the video director, with every play. What a time to be alive!
“The channel’s high-energy aesthetic left its mark on advertising, film, comedy, graphic design — everything. Show business as we know it today wouldn’t exist without it,” says Alex Kuruvilla, who led MTV India between 1999 and 2006. They called viewers the MTV Generation – kids who chomped on burgers, dared to wear jeans with kurtas, got bored in three minutes (the average length of a song), mourned Kurt Cobain, rapped to Baba Sehgal and knew the difference between RHCP and RATM.
The OG influencers
India needed a little hand-holding to process these new sounds. Enter VJs (video jockeys), young super-confident Indians who dressed stylishly, had radical opinions and jabbered between the songs. It was immediately the coolest job in the country.
“Rahul Khanna was based in Singapore then, so Tara Deshpande and I were technically the first local VJs,” Broacha says. In 1997, Malaika Arora joined to host Club MTV and Loveline. The same year, MTV launched its nationwide VJ Hunt, and discovered Maria Goretti and Nikhil Chinapa.
“I almost didn’t go,” recalls Goretti, who was a model then, and got asked to audition in the last week of the hunt. “I thought maybe they just needed more people on stage. My sister pushed me. I won. It changed my life.”
Chinapa, an architecture student, had been hosting radio shows and live events for pocket money in Bangalore. He participated on a whim. “Anything that popped up, I’d try,” he says. He moved to Mumbai, started off with hosting Select, eventually leaving to set up the Submerge and Sunburn music festivals and shape the channel VH1 Supersonic.
The job looked like fun, but it was relentless: VJs shot links, hosted on-ground events, visited colleges, met brand partners and distributors, attended parties. The pay was modest; the real currency was access — to artists, to ideas, to a rapidly globalising world.
“I don’t think any of us realized how much impact we were having,” says Shenaz Treasury, who hosted MTV Most Wanted and MTV Chillout and moved on to MTV Asia. “It hit me later, when people in Singapore would recognize me on the street and tell me how MTV shaped their style, humour, even their slang, that MTV was bigger than any one show.”
Beyond the music
In 1998-99, the channel went mainstream, including Hindi music in its programming. “While the brand’s DNA was global, everything else – the IPs, programming, the shows, the marketing was hyper local,” says Kuruvilla. “MTV took pride in its local successes.”
It’s most enduring hit: Bakra, in which Broacha essentially pranked unsuspecting folks on camera. No one was exempt – not even movie stars and cricketers. The MTV generation was fearlessly laughing at itself, at others, at life. It spawned 13 competitors within six months and ran for over a decade.
Broacha recalls feedback from an unexpected fan: “Someone called my landline and said, ‘Bal Thackeray speaking,’ He spoke clearly, in English, and said, ‘I just wanted to tell you I love this show. I stop all our meetings at 3.30 to watch it. Keep up the good work’.”
The channel took Indian music to the world. In 1999, Bedi was sent to New York to cover the MTV Video Music Awards, where A R Rahman won the International Viewer’s Choice: MTV India for Dil Se Re, the title track from Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se. “We shot with him across the NYC talking about his favourite places and music,” she recalls. “Later, we took Colonial Cousins to MTV London for the first Unplugged.”
Mini Mathur, VJ between 1999 and 2003, recalls interviewing Richard Gere at an Aids concert, stepping in last-minute to interview Deep Purple, and hosting Aamir Khan alongside the cast of Lagaan.
“The actors were nervous – it was their first big interaction with cameras. I moved easily between English and Hindi, and Aamir looked at me with respect.”
Goretti recalls being part of Gaana Masti, which parodied popular music. “Cyrus and I spoofed an Urmila Matondkar song. We also did Koi Mil Gaya: Mini was Rani Mukerji, Cyrus was Shah Rukh, and I was Kajol. Mad stuff!”
YouTube launched in 2005, Spotify launched worldwide in 2008 (and in India in 2019). Music videos, MTV’s lifeblood, were now free and on-demand. So, it pivoted to reality shows. It was a new MTV generation, one that dreamed of making it to Roadies and Splitsvilla, who understood the power of their own stories and voice.
“When people auditioned, they’d talk openly about trauma – facing abuse for being gay, skinny, fat, identity,” says Chinapa. “We encouraged young people to speak.”
We no longer need VJs, handholding or a chance to speak. We’re doing it all ourselves, editing, adding filters and clapping back at trolls. But MTV’s spirit – Indian yet international, irreverent but honest – it will take more than a channel shutdown to stamp that out.
How MTV's VJs defined pop culture before the arrival of influencers
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MTV India VJs who became style and cultural icons. (From left, seated: Malaika Arora, Cyrus Broacha, Maria Goretti, Shenaz Treasury, Mini Mathur, (standing) Cyrus Sahukar, with former MTV producers Seher Bedi and Preeta Sukhtankar
In India, the M(usic) had gone out of MTV long ago. Now, the channel is shuttering its music channels in Europe. But its VJs, who had made TV cool, have banded together and are now making everyday life look cool, one reel at a time
Mohua Das (THE TIMES OF INDIA; October 16, 2025)
After four decades of shaping youth culture and late night channel surfing, MTV is finally turning down the volume. But while MTV channels abroad — its parent, Paramount Global, announced on Oct 12 that MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live will go off air by the year-end — prepare for their swan song, MTV India remains alive. The catch? Here, the music died a while ago, somewhere between the last CD shop and the first streaming app.
What it left behind was a tribe of OG video jockeys (VJs) who defined pop TV and then outlived it.
Nearly four decades later, the faces that once invented what it meant to be young, loud and slightly ridiculous on Indian television — Cyrus Broacha, Cyrus Sahukar, Shenaz Treasury, Nikhil Chinapa, Malaika Arora, Maria Goretti, Mini Mathur, and others — have regrouped for an encore.
There’s a reason for that. The nostalgia had never really left. Every time a former VJ posts an old clip, comments flood in. “If you grew up in the ’90s, we were part of your life,” says Cyrus Sahukar. That shared history still binds the old gang.
“Everyone’s in touch and hangs out quite a bit. It feels like home,” says Shenaz.
The old MTV crew have remained unusually close now that ‘home’ has a new address: Instagram. Under the banner of Bratpack Studios, the collective they launched in Aug 2024, they’re doing what they’ve always done best — talking, laughing, oversharing, and making everyday life look cool.
The studio serves up weekly drops of music, travel, food and laughter but, more than anything, the nostalgia of everything they once stood for.
Back then, each VJ was a one-person brand before influencer culture even had a name. Its hosts introduced not just songs but a new way to talk, dress and laugh. While Doordarshan gave you discipline and family values, MTV gave you Cyrus Broacha in a short skirt and heels who got himself waxed for a Women’s Day gag.
For Nikhil Chinapa, the architecture graduate who won the VJ Hunt, MTV was never just a channel but an awakening. “I’ve met people from small towns who watched MTV and realized there was a world outside their world.”
One was rapper Raftaar, whose mother pointed at Chinapa on TV and said, “He’s from South India, too, so you can do it.”
“I’m not saying I’m the reason Raftaar became Raftaar,” he grins, “but that’s the kind of permission MTV gave.”
That sense of possibility was infectious. “There was a guy called Vishal from Bihar who stole cable TV from a neighbour’s house to watch MTV and later became its executive producer.”
To Chinapa, that was MTV’s real legacy. “It became an accidental torchbearer for empowerment. Through shows like Roadies, MTV spoke about gender equality, same-sex acceptance, even abuse within families but never in a preachy way.”
Shenaz, the bubbly boho face of MTV Most Wanted, still remembers how it began. A St Xavier’s student, she was spotted through an ad audition.
“I auditioned for Club MTV... Malaika got that, and I became her stylist, and also Broacha’s,” she recalls.
Within months, she had an offer from Singapore Airlines, but her boss convinced her to stay: “He said, ‘Either you see the world or the world sees you’.”
That spontaneity defined the era — a brief, unselfconscious decade. “Most Wanted didn’t have a director telling us what to do. I just did my own thing... I used to shoot 10 shows a day.”
That DIY energy served as training for the creator economy she works in now. “I learned filmmaking through MTV... producing, editing, everything,” she says.
Age Of Irreverence
Broacha — MTV’s original prankster — was the accidental VJ, a theatre kid who nearly joined Channel V in Hong Kong before MTV offered him a reason to stay home.
“In 1996, MTV wanted regular guys. The others were models, too good-looking, strange accents... I looked like a boy with no hope... so I represented a lot of boys with no hope,” he laughs.
Looking back, he shrugs with affection. “Fourteen years at that damn channel, getting paid nothing; of course, it shaped me. Being MTV VJ was a badge of honour. I’m embarrassed to admit it because it’s such a vacuous profession, but for a little while, you turned heads. People treated you with a lot of unnecessary respect.”
Sahukar, barely 18 when he won the VJ Hunt, brought satire to MTV’s scriptless comedy. His Fully Faltoo spoofs like Semi Girebaal — a parody of ‘Rendezvous With Simi Garewal’ — famously outrated its source material. “Can you believe that? It actually did better.”
Could they get away with that kind of humour today? “Dude, I’d be thrashed. I don’t think Simi was too happy with it either,” he concedes. “But back then, people didn’t have an opinion on everything. Outrage existed, but it didn’t have an audience. It was freer. You could be silly without overthinking.”
Broacha agrees. “Before 26/11, we had no problem being on the road dressed as cops, doing almost violent capers. We did end up in the lock-up, explaining we were just doing a silly show and then let off without much noise,” he says about shooting MTV Bakra, India’s first reality show based on candid camera pranks.
That mix of madness and camaraderie became MTV’s signature. “It was egalitarian... There was no star system,” says Broacha.
Sahukar agrees. “It was a golden time. No one cared about algorithms or likes. It was about doing things that were fun and stupid and hoping others found it funny, too.”
That was before the music faded, and the idea of a “music television” dissolved into the endless noise of non-music content.
“MTV became everything except music,” says Shenaz. “And lost its niche in 2003–2005, when they decided, ‘let’s just go mass and do reality TV...’ then it became like every other channel and stopped being cool.”
After MTV, the gang scattered but never really left the spotlight. Chinapa built India’s EDM scene from scratch, Shenaz became an actor and travel vlogger, Mini turned producer and anchor, Malaika a style and fitness icon, Maria a chef and cookbook author, Sahukar an actor and show host, and Broacha, keeps tickling funny bones like no one else can.
Could MTV ever be rebooted? “It would have to be run by the youth again,” says Sahukar. “You can’t have older people deciding what young people want to watch,” Broacha feels. “It could have become some sort of influencer-run OTT platform... but we’re the ‘Last of the Mohicans’.”
And yet, as Sahukar points out, MTV’s DNA never really disappeared, it just moved online. “You could cut what MTV did for 10 years into reels and you’d have a full-fledged network. But you’d still need to build culture. Because that’s what it really was. Pop culture.”
The indie pop era was almost like a firefly, short lived but bright-Suneeta Rao
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Singer Suneeta Rao, who has cemented her position in indie pop music, feels songs today lack longevity
Titas Chowdhury (HINDUSTAN TIMES; October 20, 2021)
Singer Suneeta Rao kickstarted her career with Senorita, which released in 1989. While the track made her a force to reckon with in the indie pop space, it was Paree Hoon Main from her 1991 album Dhuaan, that made her popularity soar, and how! Thereafter, she went on to release albums such as Talaash (1996) and Ab Ke Baras (2000).
Rao, 54, believes the 1990s was “the golden period of indie pop in a way”. “What was different about that particular period was as artistes, we were the first ones to come up with music videos, per se. That coincided with the launch of MTV in India. It gave us exposure, as it offered us the same platform as international stars such as Madonna and Michael Jackson,” she explains.
She adds that novelty was another factor which made the period so memorable. “People got to know us for our music, we got our own gigs. Record labels began signing us,” she recalls.
However, the indie pop era was short-lived. “Like anything else in the industry, the novelty faded away after some time. We were under the condition that we’d get support for our next album only if we delivered a hit. The indie pop wave couldn’t sustain itself. It was almost like a firefly — short-lived but bright,” she says.
The Vaada Karo singer went on to do what she loved the most — performing gigs, doing theatre and writing. Despite being successful in her career, Rao admits that launching albums became an uphill task. “The most difficult one was Waqt (2008). That album had a video of a song called Sun Zara. For that, I had signed up with somebody who disappeared at the last minute,” she shares.
What makes her happy, though, is that despite film music taking precedence, people still fondly remember indie pop artistes of the 90s. “The visibility of indie pop artistes on screen made a difference. The substance that songs had was different back then. I was working organically. Every producer I worked with, including Lewis Banks, Leslie Lewis, Ranjit Barot and Anand Raaj Anand, gave different characters to my album. Today, songs lack longevity, because of sheer abundance and accessibility. I don’t listen to today’s music because it’s formula-driven,” adds Rao, who is looking forward to continuing doing theatre, promoting her last album and performing.
I have sold all my furniture and have been living out of a bag and crashing at Airbnbs-Shenaz Treasurywala
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Following seven years on American TV, the VJ-turned-actress returns to India as a travel vlogger and because she misses her dhansak
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 26, 2017)
Shortly after the release of Delhi Belly in 2010, Shenaz Treasurywala travelled to San Diego for a friend’s wedding. In the US, she also auditioned for the role of Aubrey Wentworth in the soap opera One Life To Live.
Treasurywala didn’t make the cut, and decided to head back to India. “The day I was to leave, I got a call which changed my life.” The part of Rama Patel had been written into OLTL to accommodate her, and she was a New Yorker overnight. Now, seven years after her move to Brooklyn, the VJ-turned-actress is returning, and will soon release a book — All He Left Me With Was A Recipe — on her experiences.
Having starred in one of America’s longest running TV soaps and a Netflix film among others, Treasurywala decided to return because she “misses home, family, friends and dhansak”. “Recently, I was unwell, and a friend of mine travelled across the city to get me Dhansak, and eating it, I just knew I had to get back,” she says over the phone from New York.
Treasurywala says that, unlike other actors, she’s never been too picky about her roles. “I will play any role, just give me the job. Actually, I am often typecast as Middle Eastern or Pakistani here. Having said that, there are just one or two ethnically diverse roles in a show or a film. So, usually at auditions, I am competing with Latinos, Blacks, Middle Easterners, Chinese and Indians for any part.” But being profiled at auditions fades in comparison to the struggle she had to endure during her first few years in America.
“The snowstorms and blizzards in New York are not for the faint-hearted. It takes a lot of adjustment to wake up every day in minus 10 degrees and grey cloudy skies.” But the real challenge began when her show was shelved. “Two and a half years later when One Life To Live got canceled, I cried. I had to go to auditions, I had to hustle — something I didn’t have to in India because my first job as a teenager was with MTV, and I was a super success at 18.”
But her first break inspired her to keep trying, and before she knew it, she was a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Nightly Show that is produced by Jon Stewart. Then came Brown Nation, NBC’s Indian-American comedy. “I happened to go to a bar where I met a writer and cinematographer. Next day, as I was walking to school (she did a screenwriting course at NYU on the side), I ran into one of them again, and he introduced me to a director. They called me in to shoot a pilot. A year later, they shot the show and a year down, it got picked up by Netflix.” Treasurywala has also starred in Knocked Up-director Judd Apatov’s The Big Sick, starring comedian Kumail Nanjiani and Ray Romano. “I don’t invest in PR so every little job I do isn’t plastered all over the newspapers in India, but I’ve had success here.”
The great American dream is obviously not without its downside. “The scene is the same as in India, but nobody calls directly, one must have an agent or manager, and the scope of making money is much less than in India. Taxes are ridiculous, and there’s no end to bills.”
While some may argue that her Hindi film career didn’t receive the same overwhelming response as her VJ stint, she feels that one “can’t win at everything in life immediately”. “I didn’t set out to be a Bollywood actor. My first film, Ishq Vishk, just came along and I went with it, and it was a big success. I continued with MTV almost right up until Delhi Belly, which was also a big hit,” says the actress who shipped all her furniture from Mumbai to New York when she nailed her first TV gig and only recently decided to do away with it all. “I have sold all my furniture and have been living out of a bag and crashing at Airbnbs.” Airbnbs? That’s right. Treasurywala is also seriously pursuing making a living out of travel, and is a popular travel vlogger. “I work, save and travel. I just fly around the world exploring in between acting gigs. I made a choice since I was very young to spend my money on experiences and not things.” Years ago, Treasurywala had to choose between hosting her own show on MTV and a job as an airhostess with an international airline.
“Sunil Lulla, then MTV’s boss, told me that I can choose to see the world, or allow the world to see me. If I picked the second option, he said, I’d be able to afford to travel the world anyway,” says Treasurywala, who has, till date, visited over 100 countries and recorded her travelogues. Being a travel vlogger allows her, she says, to also pursue her other passions: photography, hosting and interacting with people. “It’s like MTV’s Most Wanted all over again — it’s interactive — I respond to my fans,” says the Youtube star whose channel has knocked up four and a half million views.
Channel V to shut shop while MTV will once again turn into music-only channel?
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Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; May 12, 2016)
After starting out as exclusive music channels, Channel V and MTV gradually incorporated daily soaps and reality shows in their programme list leaving a wee bit of a space for songs. Now, we hear Channel V is going to shut down and the network will collaborate with Hotstar, Star’s digital partner, and will henceforth telecast their shows on the web. If true, this would mean that shows like D4, Gumrah, Sadda Haq (pictured, above) and several others will no longer be featured on the channel.
It seems Star India will be making a strong play in the music genre — under the Channel V brand. “Channel V will be revamped as a youth focussed music brand effective July 1,” said a Star India spokesperson. The current shows will continue till end of June, after which the channel will transition to the revamped identity and programming.
In February 2016, Foxtel shut down the international Channel V and turned it into a 24-hour music video station. We wonder if the desi Channel V is headed the same way.
Another source from the TV industry reveals that MTV is also in for some major revamping: “MTV is apparently planning to go back to the basics. There is no confirmation on this, but it is going to be all about music and they will do away with their regular shows.” However, the channel is currently gearing up for Splitsvilla 9, which is expected to go on air around June.
Simultaneously, they are also working on a new show titled Angels of Rock. So, what will become of these shows if MTV goes back to being an exclusive music channel? A source close to MTV, however, denies the news.
When we got Sunny Leone in Bigg Boss, my mom stopped going for walks-Deepak Dhar
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From logging video cassettes for Rs 20 each, to helming huge productions such as Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi and Bigg Boss, Deepak Dhar’s professional journey has been full of unexpected twists and turns. He tells Deepali Dhingra why he is an ardent fan of Amitabh Bachchan and how he assured his parents that he isn’t part of the underworld
Deepali Dhingra (MID-DAY; January 25, 2014)
During his school days at Activity High School in Peddar Road, Deepak Dhar used to spend his pocket money buying video cassettes of Amitabh Bachchan’s films. On one particular occasion, the video cassette library he used to frequent was on the verge of going bankrupt, so they put everything on sale. “They were selling each VHS tape for Rs 100 and I had the exact amount,” he recalls. While most of his friends spent their sum on Bachchan’s superhit films such as Sholay, Don and Deewar, Dhar went ahead and bought Mahaan, a hit but not-so-popular movie of the actor, where he had a triple role. “All my friends were like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ My reasoning was that I’ll get to watch three Bachchans at the price of one!” he laughs. The film buff might never have imagined that his ability to understand the logistics of entertainment, will, one day, lead him to becoming the CEO and MD of Endemol India, one of the leading content production companies in the country.
Baby steps
Born in Hyderabad to Kashmiri Pandit parents, Dhar remembers speaking fluent Telugu till the age of 10, when he moved to Mumbai with his parents. He stayed at Breach Candy for almost 15 years before moving to Powai where he currently resides. “I was always very filmi,” says the entrepreneur, referring to the ‘Mahaan’ episode, “I always had this flair for writing and photography,” he adds. Taking up engineering in college was not out of choice, but by default. “I come from a middle-class orthodox Kashmiri family, where you are a nobody if you are not an engineer or a doctor,” he states.
However, very soon the young student realised that engineering is not his cup of tea. “A friend called Raja used to work for a production house called Magic Box Productions, and asked me to come to his office. It was my final year of engineering and I was whiling away my time, so I went to their office in Oshiwara,” he recalls. That’s how he bagged his first job in 1996 that entailed him to log tapes. He was paid a measly Rs 20 for each tape that he logged. “I must have seen some really trashy films, but I enjoyed the stint thoroughly,” he smiles.
That same year, Prime Sports — now called Star Sports — was setting up a team for their production department that would broadcast the Cricket World Cup being held in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. “I joined the team and was assigned to cover the matches that were going to be played in India,” he says. The young trainee would carry tripods and cables and in return, get to watch some of the cricketing greats, including Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sanjay Manjarekar in action. “It was a big thing for a young guy like me, as I’m a full-on Bollywood and cricket fan,” says Dhar. But he adds sheepishly, “The real lure for me was the merchandise — the T-shirt and the cap emblazoned with the words Prime Sports. It might not be a big deal now, but in those days, it was a matter of pride to own something like that,” says Dhar, who adds that just like the Mahaan VHS tape, he still has the T-shirt and cap at home.
After the three-month stint, he was absorbed into Star TV as a production assistant, a job he held for a couple of years, before joining MTV. “I got sucked into writing, creating, direction and production. I worked in close proximity with Cyrus Broacha, Danny McGill and VJ Noni and started getting known as the guy who was good at creating music television,” informs the 40-year-old.
But while things were going great professionally, home was another story altogether. “Extremely turbulent,” that’s how Dhar describes it. “My career had taken a detour and how. While my parents had grudgingly accepted the earlier jobs, they could not come to terms with my job at MTV. I would not come home for days, neither shower nor brush my teeth. My mom thought I’ve joined the underworld!” he chuckles at the memory.
Reality strikes
After a five-year stint at MTV, when Dhar joined Channel V, he was asked to direct Channel V Jammin, a show that was as close to reality TV as it could get in those days. “We would lock two musicians, as different from each other as chalk and cheese, in a room and ask them to come up with a track. It became a cult show,” he recalls. That was also the time when the channel was coming up with a talent hunt show called Popstars. When Sameer Nair, the former Star India head, called Dhar to ask what he thought about the show, the latter’s immediate reply was that he could direct it. “I bagged the show, but I had to cancel my vacation with my wife to Goa. Thankfully, she’s supportive of me and my activities,” he grins.
A night before the auditions were to begin, Dhar messaged Nair to inform him that everything was set for the auditions the next day. “Within a minute, I got a reply from him that said, ‘Remember, it’s not about auditions, it’s about emotions.’ For me, that was the brief. You won’t believe the number of girls who cried at the auditions — I think Popstars was known more for its emotions than its music,” Dhar says of the show that went on to become a cult series and gave birth to pop bands such as Viva and Aasma.
By then the maverick producer/director had had enough of music television and decided to shift gears. Nair put him on to Star One, a new channel. Here, the television whiz was in charge of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, which made stand-up comedians Raju Srivastav, Sunil Pal and Naveen Prabhakar overnight stars. The triumph for Dhar was getting Navjot Singh Sidhu to co-host the show. “Nobody thought that Sidhu could be a perfect fit for the comedy genre. Everyone thought I was making a huge mistake by getting him on board. Star thought this was going to be the biggest misfire, but Sidhu’s one-line repartees helped him garner a huge fan following,” he adds. After a few seasons of the show, when Dhar went to Nair seeking a change of job, the latter let him go, but not before putting him in touch with then Endemol India CEO, Rajesh Kamat.
What lies ahead
Dhar may have decided to join Endemol, but it didn’t happen before facing some stiff opposition back home. “My parents, who had by now accepted and were even happy with what I was doing at Star TV, had never heard of Endemol. To my mom, it sounded like Paracetamol!” he laughs. He joined the production house in 2006. Things moved on pretty quickly from there. “I would have breakfast in Filmcity on the sets of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, lunch on the sets of Fame Academy at RK Studio and dinner at Karjat on the sets of Bigg Boss. My driver Dilip and I are buddies now. His number on my speed dial is even before my wife’s,” he guffaws.
Dhar took over from Kamat after the latter quit Endemol in 2008. “Sameer and Rajesh were the two biggest influences in my career. While Sameer taught me entertainment, Rajesh taught me the business of entertainment,” he says. Today, Bigg Boss and Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi are two of their most successful shows, with the former currently on air in its eighth season and the latter’s sixth season about to go on air soon. Bigg Boss, of course, has its share of critics, but as Dhar points out, everyone’s hooked on to the show. “When we got Sunny Leone in the house for season five, my mom stopped going for her evening walks,” Dhar chuckles. When she told him that their relatives don’t like it, his response — ‘This means they are watching it’ — put an end to the discussion. The show also has its regional counterparts in Kannada and Bangla and they plan to introduce it in Telugu as well. The company has also ventured into fiction with shows such as Mile Jab Hum Tum, Sabki Laadli Bebo and Lagori on Star Pravah in Marathi and with the Telugu version of the Hindi blockbuster Kahaani, they ventured into the business of cinema last year. Their next move is into the digital space. “I love treading into unchartered territories. One has to swim in the river to reach the ocean,” he philosophises.
Family first
With so much on his plate, how does he find time for himself? At this, the producer shares yet another anecdote from his Popstars days. Between two seasons of the show, Dhar, too, had got a little star of his own — his baby daughter Anushka. “Work was really hectic, so when I went to inform Sameer about the birth of my daughter, his boss, an Australian, who was present in his office asked, ‘Deepak, how do you find the time?’ I didn’t know what to say,” he bursts into laughter.
Dhar loves to spend his free time with his family. He enjoys watching Hindi movies with his daughter on weekends, playing badminton with her in the mornings and going with her and his wife for vacations. “For the last season of Khatron Ke Khiladi, I took my family to Cape Town, and we had a lot of fun participating in adventure sports, like deep sea diving and sky diving,” he says. The doting father reveals that as a child, he owned two Alsatian dogs — Gabbar and Bullett — and now, it’s his daughter’s now wish to own a pet dog. “In Hyderabad, we had a huge house but here, our house isn’t large enough for one. Last year, I got parrots for her for Christmas, but she’s extracted a promise from me to get her a dog by Valentine’s Day,” he says. So will he? “Difficult to say, I’ve broken that promise twice already!” he quips.
Inside Track
Born: April 23, 1974
Education: Electrical engineering from Mumbai University
First job: As a logger at Magic Box Productions
Mantra in life: Take a leap of faith
Best advice I ever got: Sameer Nair’s words ‘It’s not about auditions, it’s about emotions’ and Rajesh Kamat's lessons on the business of entertainment
My favourites
Film: All of Amitabh Bachchan’s movies
Sport: Racquet sports including squash and badminton
Destination: Cape Town, South Africa
Tv show: From Endemol’s offering, it’s Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi. I also love Kaun Banega Crorepati
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