Saraswatichandra was too demanding, hence I gave it up – Sanjay Leela Bhansali

It seems that well known film director and producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali (SLB) who made a foray into Indian television with Saraswatichandra seems to prefer the big screen over the small screen for he himself admits, “I preferred to hand over production of my above Star Plus show to some other producer (Sphere Origins) while continuing to give creative inputs. I could not find time from my upcoming film Ram-Leela which will release this Friday. I personally supervised the first fifteen to twenty episodes of my take on the famous Gujarati novel written by Govardhanram Tripathi. They were highly praised, but it was becoming too demanding to give every day attention.”

Talking about this medium of future SLB who has earlier made celluloid classics such as Devdas, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Black etc said, “Television is very powerful as it reaches out to millions of people. My own mother is hooked to the tube between 7-10 pm; you just can’t disturb her then. She would only check out my show when it would simulcast on Doordarshan at 9 as at Star Plus’ time slot of 7.30 pm she watches some other show. She would also compare Saraswatichandra’s content with other shows, which I had no clue about.”

“Over all I enjoyed the process of creating such a made-for TV concept. I thoroughly enjoyed the give and take with the channel on creative calls. It was interesting to understand what makes a show hit on the ratings game. We try to decipher the elements of why a show which is number one in the US is number six or number 8 in India (we assume he is talking about 24),” he said.

In closing Sanjay said he would not prefer to do any more TV projects at the moment.