In Rajasthan, lies the realism to build a story: Purnendu Shekhar

He was 26 when he packed his bags and left Jaipur in pursuit of fulfilling his dream of making it big in movies. Almost 26 years down the line, after a lot of struggle, the man has emerged as one of the finest scriptwriters for the television industry. Meet Purnendu Shekhar, the man who introduced Rajasthan and its culture on television.
“When I left Jaipur with this dream of being in Bollywood, I didn’t know what was in store for me in the city of dreams.But still I left for Mumbai, only to end up doing odd jobs at various television show sets and film shoots,” he recounts. However, it was during those days of his struggle that Shekhar realized that it was scripting that was his forte. “When I failed to make a mark as an actor and was about to leave Mumbai that a friend offered me to script for Imitihan, a teleseries on Doordarshan, that made me stay back for good,” he said.
However, it was not with Imtihan that he began scripting formally for television, for now Shekhar was trained for almost any job for television industry. He then shifted as a programming person for the then newly launched Zee and then moved on to fill in as the creative head for Aruna Irani’s AK Productions. “This gave me a source of steady income and scripting took a backseat for the time being, till I moved on to become the head of the creative writing team of Kumkum. It was then that Astitvahappened, which was closely followed by Saat Phere-Saloni Ka Safar,” said Shekhar.
It was Saat Phere-Saloni Ka Safar that marked the beginning of Shekhar’s second stint with scripting. “I hail from Rajasthan, and so naturally I am very attached to its culture and traditions. And hence most of my scripts have a Rajasthan connect, be it Saat Phere..., Balika Vadhu or Jyoti,” he told us.
So, how did he get to do Balika Vadhu? “I had written the script way back in 1992 but it didn’t have any takers till Ashwini Yardi came looking for a hatke script for Colors. So, I narrated the story to her. She was initially shocked by the fact that child marriages are still rampant in India but after she said yes, there was no looking back for Anandi’s story, which was initially rejected by a couple of people on the ground that it’s DD stuff,” he recalled.
According to him, it was the story of his mother, who got married at 15 that inspired him to write. “The story is loosely based on my mom and a family friend, who deserted his child-bride, once he went off to Ahmedabad to pursue his medical studies. So, to build a story, there needs to be a certain degree of realism. It’s not just basing a story in any state that will make a serial a hit. It’s the content that is still the king,” he said.
Shekhar added that the fact that Rajasthan still has the concept of joint families makes it ideal for a TV show. “Coming to the recent rush in making series based in Rajasthan, one needs to understand that it’s because of greater penetration of TAM. TRPs matter and hence, Rajasthan has now become the flavour of Indian television, just like Gujarati families became a staple for TV when such mapping centres opened in Ahmedabad, apart from the metros,” he explained.
Since Purnendu became a household name with Saat Phere... and Balika Vadhu, does that mean that he will continue writing Rajasthan-centric stories? “I am greatly inspired by Rajasthan, as I belong to the state and have great experience which if woven in a teleseries, makes it more interesting. But trends change with time and so do market. So, I may soon be writing for other states or city-centric stories,” he summed up.