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Channel surfer

December 5, 2007

There is a no-fuss air that surrounds Zarina Mehta as she enters the UTV office at Worli, Mumbai. She may dismiss fashion, but epitomises panache with her staple, crisp shirt tucked into blue jeans, her Salvatore Ferragamo bag and Fendi belt.

Minimalist but classy is her motto, whether at her spanking white-walled home or faultless modernistic office-she never experiments with her wardrobe, and when she shops, which is seldom, she picks up shirts or shoes in doubles or triples.

Her intonated voice rings with authority, a throwback to her early days in theatre. After 20 years in the field, 46-year-old Mehta, founder member of the UTV group, a Rs 400-crore integrated media company, can look back on several firsts- the first daily soap Shanti, the first game show Snakes and Ladders and the first game show for children, Gol Gol Gullam.

Starting with Rs 37,000 to found the production house, Mehta along with husband Ronnie Screwvala and friend Deven Khote, played a crucial role in the growth of UTV, as also the television business.

“Ronnie is the boss. He looks after everything at UTV. Deven looks after USL and I look after Bindass. We share an excellent work relationship,” she says.

Television is her passion and her forte is the ability to recognise a good idea, which needn’t be hers, and build it to its full capacity. She started out during the days of Doordarshan, a time when they had sanction for 10-odd serials on Doordarshan.

Work was sparse between 1986 and 1992. “But we had a great time and did some great work like The Mathemagic Show (a game show I researched for one year) and Lifeline (a serial on doctors which was done on 16 mm, unheard of at that time).

We had huge budgets too,” she says. The advent of Zee in 1992 marked a turning point for television. From those 10-odd shows they ended up with 200 including Snakes and Ladders, Junglee Toofan Tyre Puncture and Chakravyuha. With Zee opening the floodgates for television programming, there was no shortage of work.

It was around this time that Mehta became part of Shanti, the first daily soap on Doordarshan to hit Indian television. “Sam Balsara of CMD, Madison Communications, approached us with the idea of doing a daily show. We didn’t know how to get started. So we got Adi Pocha from Lintas to write the script.

The story of a girl who returns to take revenge on her mother’s rapist was very progressive for its time. Mandira Bedi was chosen. She was very raw then. They were great years, when we did over 1,000 shows in three years.” Shanti did other things too.

It was the first programme to be syndicated. “It was aired in Sri Lanka during prime time. When Mandira went to Sri Lanka, she was on the front page of every Lankan daily for all of those seven days,” she says.

In 1996, Sony and Star entered the market and Mehta became involved with shows like Saaya and Hip Hip Hooray. “We always wanted to try and do something new.

Competition was hotting up and till 2002 we even tied up with Balaji. “But in 2002, we felt the need to control our destiny in the sense of scripts and execution.
"We decided to let go of television and thought it was time to change focus, and got into feature films.” But Mehta is quick to point out that she is not involved with films at all, barring reading scripts. By the time 2004 rolled around, Mehta had tired of television and decided to quit. “I had stopped learning. I was churning out serials. In January 2005, I decided to take a sabbatical and for 20 days joined a Shiamak Davar dance course, read and went for Vipassana,” she says.