TURNING HEADS
Eleven women share their secrets for success
The Boss Lady pin on her blue dress emphatically reflects the aura that Ekta Kapoor exudes. It’s of success, aggression and power; of knowing that she is the uncrowned queen of television and the confidence that she can turn failure into glittering success. She’s transformed the face of television programming, launched stars, created records and changed the way India consumes at-home entertainment. She’s also been accused of projecting regressive roles for women, of temper tantrums and showdowns. But with 17,000 hours of programming, 150 shows in seven languages, a turnover of `415 crore, top ranks in the popularity charts, bouncing back from losses and sustaining a daily soap for eight years, Kapoor’s story is awe-inspiring. “Success brings me a sense of self-worth and achievement, gives me the ability to impact minds and the freedom to choose the life I want,” she says. But success is rarely permanent and Kapoor knows that well. When television viewers and channels rejected her domestic dramas, she swiftly jumped on to newer avenues such as movie making and the all-popular digital space with Alt Balaji, last year. “Change is the only constant,” she says. That change is noticeable even in her demeanour. She’s noticeably calmer, patient and dispassionately analyses her struggles as she traces her journey from being an eager-to-find-work teenager to the empress of entertainment. In 1994, her family had ventured into creating content for a UK-based channel but the deal fell through. “We had content but no buyers,” she says. Faced with losses and the worry that her father’s “earnings had been jeopardised”, the daughter of actor Jeetendra and Shobha Kapoor jumped into the business, determined to find new opportunities and undo the losses.
“As women, we are born combats with the ability to multitask,” she says. The infectious buzz at the Balaji House, Mumbai, is a far cry from the mood and ambience in the office as Kapoor had first walked into the Zee TV office in late 1994 with a pilot episode of Hum
Paanch. She had arrived there after offering the first copy at Siddhivinayak Temple, a ritual she is known to follow till today, and stood for 30 minutes filling up a form. “No one knew me there as Jeetendra’s daughter,” she says. Kapoor had lost `50 lakh on
Itihaas, a show on Doordarshan and needed new work. “We had to mortgage our house to be able to pay salaries. My mother said we can’t be entrepreneurs if we cannot pay our people,” she says. Hum Paanch was a
runaway success but Kapoor “got typecast” for four years as someone who could only make comedy. “Channels didn’t have faith that I could do drama well which is now funny because all that I have been doing since then is drama. I felt India was ready for a family drama,” she says.
Her career in the south took off by chance after actor Rajinikanth introduced her to Sun TV. She dived into her new task to make Kudumbam in Tamil. Eager to control every aspect of the show, she has the script written and edited in Mumbai. “I cleared every episode without understanding the language,” she says. The show went on to make `1 lakh a day and Kapoor established her position in the south television business with 20 shows across channels. As she walked to Tirupati—a temple she reveres—Kapoor realised that her wishes had come true. Only months earlier, she had stood outside a restaurant that had a turnover of a lakh a day and hoped for similar earnings. She rode the wave of success after that.
The year 2000 marked the launch of three shows—Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, Koshish and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi—that catapulted her to the indisputable number one position on television. “After that Star TV never left,” she says and Balaji Telefilms went on to make 30 shows for them. Serials began with the letter ‘K’ and spellings got a numerological twist with extra alphabets as the new formula for success. And actors from across the country queued up outside Balaji House.
Even as channels chased her and actors queued up for auditions, Kapoor realised that there was no permanent formula for success. In 2008, all her shows dropped from the top 50; the popular Kahaani Ghar
Ghar Ki went kaput and she was denied a meeting with an executive in Star, an episode that had infuriated her. The
‘K’ charm had suddenly failed. “City audiences changed, metres went to smaller towns and the newer channels got these new audiences. Change, I realised, was the only constant,” she says. So, the canny businesswoman shifted to making movies and reworked her shows. “I lived in denial for a while but that was a loser’s attitude,” she says. Foraying into cinema with Balaji Motion Pictures, she looked for “edgy stories” which made their way into Love Sex
Aur Dhoka and Once Upon a Time in Mumbai.
Wanting to build her own version of Netflix, Kapoor moved into the digital space with Alt Balaji in April 2017 creating subscriptionbased video-on-demand content aimed at Indians—urban and rural—who want something indigenous. “There is a large population of emancipated urban, middle class people. They may not be fluent in English and want entertainment in their own language,” she says. While the quality of content is debatable for the Netflix-watching audience, some of the shows have caught on with their target audience. Last year, Reliance Industries acquired a 24.92 per cent stake in Balaji Telefilms for `413 crore giving a boost to Alt Balaji that already has more than four million downloads. “It is one skip of technology where we moved straight from general TV programming to the on-demand digital space,” she says. For those who initially dismissed her as a star child born with the silver spoon, Kapoor, who has reigned over the television industry for two decades, has proved that she has scripted her success.
“YOU CANNOT ISOLATE YOUR JOURNEY”