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When khichdi came to the screen

The channel asked us the reason behind calling the show Khichdi. We told them that the serial is masaledar, there will be a lot of entertainment...

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At the outset, the producer-actor has nothing to do with khichdi and strangely everything to do with it! Being a Gujarati, he says, khichdi is the go-to dish in his house. Apart from that he is associated with the wacky, mad comedy Khichdi, which was also made into a movie. So, who better than JD to talk about the humble dish and its worthiness to be made into a National Dish. “It’s a complete meal. It’s simple, it is healthy, it is tasty, easy-to-cook and easy-to-digest. There are also varieties in khichdi and is something that every community mein banti hai. In fact, that was the thought when we named our serial Khichdi 15 years ago! Frankly, it has no competition and should be made the National Dish.”

Talking about how he and his writer-partner Aatish Kapadia zeroed in on Khichdi as the title for their serial, JD recounts, “We used to do theatre then. Aatish had written the serial Ek Mahal Ho Sapnon Ka, which was completing 1,000 episodes. That was the era when serials like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii and Kasauti Zindagi Kay were at their peak. We used to do a lot of masti talk around the unnecessary rituals, over-the-top dressing in those shows saying, ‘Aise kuch hota hai kya?’. So, somebody told us, ‘tumlog kuch karke dikhao phir’. We decided to do something different; we thought of a peculiar, mad family. We were doing this play and we took the characters from there and exaggerated their traits. We gave a narration, the channel liked it and immediately asked us to make the pilot episode. But we were flying to Africa and told them we will make it after returning from there. When we were travelling from Nairobi to Mombasa, Aatish and I were discussing the title and he came up with Khichdi and I loved it. When we told the channel, they asked us the reason behind calling it Khichdi. We told them that the serial is masaledar, there will be a lot of entertainment. Also, Khichdi because it is relatable as it is one dish jo every community mein chalti hai. Also, the title was a differentiator and the channel was happy that it continues the ‘K’ series that were popular then.”

JD adds that the first hoarding of the series did not have any actors in it. “It just had a cooking pan with a tagline — What is cooking? People thought it was a cookery show. When the serial started, people were initially taken aback by the characters and their behaviour. ‘Yeh kya ajeeb show hai — babuji ko pareshan karte hain — aisa koi bolta hai kya?’ were the constant refrains. It took time for them to understand that humour. It took a while to digest this show, but once it did, it became a classic. Even today people remember the serial fondly. Later, we made Instant Khichdi in keeping with the fad for instant food, instant noodles and even that worked,” says JD, who is all set to bring back the serial with the same actors and characters albeit in a different set up.

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