‘The other side’ of Dhurandhar Niranjan Pathak’s journey with DD

Success does not come easily! One has to toil for carving a place in the selected field. Learning consistently from the experience and senior colleagues, determination and hard work only help. This also applies to Niranjan Pathak, who started his career with Nagpur Centre of Doordarshan as Production Assistant. Today, after serving the field of his deep interest, he is one of the most popular television serial producer in the state.

Talking to The Hitavada, he revealed his story of success, without concealing his failures and lesson learnt from the experience of working in glamorous city - Mumbai. While working for Nagpur Centre of Doordarshan for over two decades, he was used to producing short documentaries, mainly based on agriculture, animal husbandry and rural life. The time slot for Nagpur was only of 30 minutes and the subjects were very limited. He was then transferred to Bhawanipatnam in Odissa, a still smaller place with meager facilities to work.

Born in a family of actors, playwright and director on the stage, Niranjan could not resist himself from working outside the limitations of Doordarshan. With experience of working in drama since childhood, Niranjan produced a mega play ‘Rashtra Ka Hunkar’, with more than 300 artists working in it. The show, on life of militarymen, became popular and more than 50 shows were held in Maharashtra and other states. Habituated with working with smaller centres of Doordarshan for almost 25 years, he was transferred to Mumbai. A big studio with modern facilities startled him a bit.

The manner in which he initiated working drew criticism from the Mumbai Centre Director and other seniors. For almost a month, he was facing criticism. He started learning by helping his seniors in almost all kind of work related to production for four to five months. With growing confidence, he finally proposed a chat show with prominent personalities from Marathi film and drama. The giant in the field of Marathi film and drama Vikram Gokhale agreed to be the anchor. During discussion with Gokhale, the confidence grew and the show became very popular. Meeting personalities like Rohini Hattangadi, Prashant Damle, Nitish Bharadwaj, Mrunal Kulkarni, Bharat Jadhav, Nishigandha Wad was a feast.

The struggle they made to reach to the top positions as stated by them, added to the determination of working more. The show titled ‘Dusari Baju’ (the other side) became very popular and Niranjan succeeded in producing 150 interviews for Sahyadri Channel of Doordarshan, for almost three years. The biggest one was two-hour interview of renowned personality in the field of drama Vijaya Mehta, which was 101st episode. The episodes are being re-telecast by Sahyadri. The success of ‘Dusari Baju’ attracted Bollywood and the National Channel of Doordarshan wanted it to be produced in Hindi. Niranjan himself was assigned the job of producing the serial in Hindi. Kiran Juneja (Ganga of Mahabharat) was the writer and anchor. The programme was telecast with the title ‘Koshish Se Kamyabi Tak’. The anchor for some episodes was Zarina Wahab.

The programme continued with growing popularity for 121 episodes and is now being re-telecast by National Channel of Doordarshan. Here too the struggle of today’s famous Bollywood personalities was placed made known to viewers. Niranjan, with experience of working with most modern equipment and technology, ventured into making of a serial in Marathi. The detective stories of Gurunath Naik was on his mind. After searching for Gurunath Naik’s literature, he produced a serial titled ‘Dhurandhar’, the detective with the same name in Gurunath Naik’s books. Deputy Director (Production) Chandramohan Nandanpawar and Additional Director General M S Thomas, both Nagpurians posted at Mumbai Doordarshan, helped Niranjan in his venture. Talking about difficulties in outdoor shooting in Mumbai, Niranjan stated, “The cost is very high and booking well in advance delays the project. I then decided to shoot a major part of the serial in Nagpur. Some local artists were also offered opportunity to work in the serial. The Doordarshan Nagpur Centre’s premises was used effectively to make Dhurandar’s office, a police station and also shooting an episode of bank robbery.”

The serial is being telecast on Sahyadri Channel. Niranjan was also assigned the job of producing Government of India’s programme ‘Safar Manzilon Ka’, based on success stories of ‘Swachhata Doot’ of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Renowned film actor Manoj Bajpai was anchor. With this huge experience of working with prominent personalities on important projects Niranjan is working on three more projects. The experience of working in Mumbai helped in enriching the knowledge and effective use of modern technology, Niranjan stated, during his visit to the city. He also calls his experience as ‘Safar Manzilon Ka’ and discussed the ‘Dusari Baju’ of his stint with Doordarshan.

Difficult to believe but once throb of youngsters Gurunath Naik, is living in poverty, in Panaji, Goa. Niranjan Pathak, who wanted to make serial on Gurunath Naik’s popular detective hero ‘Dhurandhar’ had to search for whereabouts of, writer of 1208 books, Gurunath Naik for almost two years. The address and phone numbers on his books were old and new ones were not known even to the publisher of the books. Niranjan could get some books from the market. But formal permission of Naik and others books were essential.

The last landlord of his rented house in Mumbai only knew that he along with his wife has shifted to Goa. With the help of some friends information that he lives in Panaji was collected. Niranjan searched for him for two days in Panaji and finally held discussion with him. “Gurunath Naik’s first look, as an old thin person confined to chair, was disturbing.

The one who wrote stories of bravery of Dhurandhar, himself was in bad condition,” Niranjan stated. Former Chief Minister of Goa Manohar Parrikar had extended some financial help to Naik. He was given a government quarter and medical help, besides financial help of Rs 1,000 per month. “I collected 52 books from his home and sought his permission to produce a serial. I also gave him some money”, he stated. “The hero of our generation is in bad condition”, Niranjan said.