Babbar Ka Tabber is your second web series. What has the feedback been like?
People are still catching up with the show, but whosoever has watched it, they’re definitely able to relate to it. The middle-class set up of the show resonates amongst the masses. The nuances of the show have been picked up from real life incidents also, and I think the audience is finding it interesting to see their own lives with a tadka of entertainment.
Two shows in the first half of 2018. This seems to be the big year for Mango People. Comment.
We’re grateful to Viu and Zee for their trust in budding producers like us and it’s been sheer coincidence or luck that both just came out one after the other. We just hit jackpot last year when both our shows got commissioned and that too on such big platforms. We had made two short films last year too and both the films got nominated this year for the best short films by IWM digital awards. This just gives us more confidence to do more better stuff in the digital space. We’ve had our share of struggles and let downs, but it only feels great to see all the hard work finally getting noticed and appreciated.
Mango People holds membership to a rather exclusive club. Most production houses are founded and led by a single person, while Mango People is a company lead by two – you and Victor Mukherjee. How does the partnership work?
Well, don’t know what ‘exclusive club’ means, but our friendship has really helped us make our partnership work really well over the years (touch wood). Victor and I have been working together for more than a decade now. We started off as colleagues at Red Chillies, became best friends, who now have a business together. We have an understanding of each other’s working style. While I look into the show-running aspect of the shows, Victor handles the story writing and direction bit. Together we’ve networked, created our team, faced hardships and good days too – hoping to go a long way as business partners.
It is usually almost impossible to not have creative difference in the field of content development. What about you guys?
We do have a lot of creative difference every now and then, which I think works for us. While his choices and liking are more intellectual and niche; my likings are slightly commercial, because of that we’re able to see two different points of views and that helps us create a mix of both and maintain a good balance. We put across our logic and consider all the best and worst-case scenarios and then mutually come to a decision.
What is the way forward for Mango People Media?
We are in talks for a couple of more shows with platforms, some interesting projects are in the pipeline. We are also working on content for a series of short films for our own YouTube channel. We want to be more than a boutique production house but a destination for all content solutions. We are also working with a lot of brands in the space. We also want to increase our team strength along with quality content, and, would also like to get into film production.