by Erich Bridges, posted Thursday, June 11, 2009 (15 years ago)
MUMBAI, India (BP)--Television writer Sankalp Tak steers his late-model compact through the streets of Mumbai, India's largest city, dodging waves of cars and motorized rickshaws to park behind a nondescript warehouse.
Inside -- barely controlled chaos, like Mumbai itself.
It's the set of a TV comedy about upscale students at a fictional Indian college. Production crew members rush to break down one scene and set up the next. The director huddles with the producer and cameramen while the actors practice their lines and check their makeup with hand mirrors.
Everyone greets Tak, age 27. He's one of the creative forces behind the production, which airs four nights a week on India's popular Star One network. He auditioned about 1,000 actors to cast the show and used to spend all day, every day, on the set as a creative director before he switched to scriptwriting.
Tak misses the daily craziness -- but not too much.
"Politics is not a virtue in this business," he says. "You have to be aggressive, even heartless sometimes, to handle the chaos on the set or push someone who's already worked to 10 or 11 to go until 2 a.m." Read More
