Hansal Mehta said the channel kept threatening to ‘shut down’ Khana Khazana, but he fought with Zee TV and stuck to his conviction.
Filmmaker Hansal Mehta has revealed that he had to fight it out to get chef Sanjeev Kapoor as the host for the long-running iconic cookery show, Khana Khazana as the channel, Zee TV, was not in favour of him. Hansal Mehta had directed the cookery show, which began in 1993.
During an interview with Humans of Bombay, Mehta said the channel thought having a woman as the host of the show would give Khana Khazana “credibility” as they were catering more to family audiences.
“Zee TV rejected him (Kapoor). They wanted a woman. They thought a woman would be more credible, and relatable and they were in that whole housewife scenario, that you know, ‘We make shows for families, so a nice housewife cooking will (look better).’ I said that’s a Tarla Dalal phenomenon, we need to go beyond. You need to have a chef telling you… That credibility is needed,” he said in the interview.
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Mehta said they stuck to their choice of having Sanjeev Kapoor as the face of the show and after a long back and forth with the channel, they eventually agreed.
“I stuck to my guns, we fought with Zee TV quite a lot for many weeks. They kept threatening to shut the show down. But ultimately, the show ran for 22 years. The show was a struggle, the budget was low. We did the first 52 episodes with Rs 36,000 per episode. Luckily, they did not deduct TDS at that time. The money was very little, I did not make money. I used to direct, edit the show myself, package it too, put out the recipe card, and then mastering the show. I did all of those jobs,” he added.
Mehta is currently basking in the glory of his latest directorial Scoop, streaming on Netflix. Inspired by Jigna Vora’s biographical book Behind The Bars In Byculla: My Days in Prison, Scoop is created by Mehta and Thappad co-writer Mrunmayee Lagoo. The series is headlined by Karishma Tanna, starring as Jagruti Pathak, an ambitious crime journalist, who becomes a murder suspect.
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First published on: 11-06-2023 at 13:49 IST
