Ekta Kapoor: on being a woman

TV soap and now-film queen Ekta Kapoor marked her presence at entertainment industry conclave FICCI Frames in Mumbai today (16 March 2012). Not only did she arrive in her Jaguar, she also came with a bevy of security personnel, which have now become a must for successful film personalities. Speaking at the “Women in Media and Entertainment-Circa 2012-Leading From the Front” session she confessed that she became a producer just so that she could pay for her partying. Kapoor remembered a moment when a programming person in a channel told her she would be given a margin of Rs 10,000 per episode for a show she was producing because she was a rich girl and she was going to be using the money for partying. “I accepted it, but I told her it was not fair. She had to pay a lot more after that, for the other shows I made,” Ekta said. “Also, today she is no longer in the industry,” she added with a smile. She agreed that being related to Jeetendra Kapoor did open doors in channels initially but after that she had to battle and pitch the show like any other TV producer. “Rajni sir took a liking to me and he called up a channel to give me a show,” she confessed. “The channel people called up and told me that they had given me a 10:45 pm slot. For anyone who knows the south, that is the sleep hour. But I took up the challenge and produced it which then went up to become the top most show on the channel. I personally, worked on every aspect of it though I did not understand the language. I hired writers from here and got the show on air. After its success, the channel called me up and was more than willing to give me a prime time slot.” “The daughter and mother combination of me and my mother worked very well. At Balaji, she continued doing what she was doing all the time before we started production - being a housekeeper. She is one of the finest production people I have known.” Ekta confessed that she is proud being a woman who is breaking the rules. “I don’t believe in them at all,” she said. She added that she hired many girls to work with her in the early day of Balaji Telefilms. “It worked in our favour as parents were open to their daughters getting employed with Balaji as they felt they would be safe. I am proud to say that Balaji has at some time or the other contributed almost 40 per cent of the talent in the TV industry today,” she further shared. “We have creative directors who are women, editors, and it has worked very well,” she continued. Furthermore, she was open to the idea of bringing about a paradigm shift in a key element of production side of the industry which is male dominated – the spot boy. “We can think about replacing them with spot girls, that is an interesting idea,” she ended.