The men and women who made things happen in DD

‘Our concentration was on our work’

Director Shyam Benegal worked on Katha Sagar, Yatra and Bharat Ek Khoj for Doordarshan. “I decided to do a series on the two longest train journeys in India – one from Kanyakumari to Pathankot Cantonment and the other from Jaisalmer to Dumduma in Odisha,” he recalls. “We had the whole train to ourselves.”

The show was sponsored by the Indian Railways, and Benegal chose passengers and actors from different parts of the country, travelling from one place to another by train. “I would pick them up from the point of departure and drop them at their destinations, and the travel fare was on me. And that’s what delighted them all,” he says, with a laugh. Local, folk musicians were picked up from different parts of the country in a similar way.

“I got to see the country through the lens of this series. In Rajasthan, we would take a break between Jaisalmer and Jodhpur stations, spend around five hours on the sand dunes, especially during the full moon nights and shoot performances for my show. Villagers would gather around to see the shooting and the entire scene looked like a mela from a distance.”

Back when there was no competition, producing TV shows was a liberating experience. “We never thought of competing. It never occurred to us. Hence, all the concentration was on our work.”

The national broadcaster needs someone with fresh thinking in terms of content and presentation, he believes. “There’s a pool of talent in the country. All we need to do is stop chasing the international trends and create a niche of our own,” he says.