Ashvini Yardi-Masaba Masaba

I as a person have always taken risks Ashvini Yardi -

With accolades pouring in by the dozen for her show Masaba Masaba on Netflix, producer Ashvini Yardi tells Sumita Chakraborty what made her make this unique show despite the many challenges she faced.

She needs no introduction. The producer with the Midas touch, she was the one who took the small screen by storm by introducing unique women oriented concepts including Saath Phera (as Head of Zee TV) and Balika Vadhu (as Head of Colors). She forayed into films with another out-of-the-box concept Oh My God… But it was her refreshingly liberating show Masaba Masaba on Netflix that crowned her as the out-of-the-box producer who thinks different. Meet the very vivacious Ashvini Yardi who tells us why she conceptualized Masaba Masaba, got Masaba to act and Neena Gupta to star in it, her challenges and more. Read on…

Your show Masaba Masaba on Netflix is extremely refreshing and liberating and definitely, a must see for women especially… what made you think of this concept?

Thank you, right now, I’m extremely happy that it has got such a fabulous response. But If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I had pimples etc with the stress -though I’m past the pimple age. (laughs). Well, I have lived with this concept for two years. I was working on a biopic for a film and during that process, I realised that there are so many dos and don’t’s regarding the person. They want you to show them in a particular way and if they aren’t alive, the family has hazaar instructions. But I felt that it is very important to show the flaws too. I wanted to show the good and bad part too. Your climax doesn’t work if you show just the good. So that’s the thought I had and that’s when I got this concept. I was of course very clear that it had to be a woman’s concept.

Why did you pick Masaba?

Right in the beginning, I was clear that I didn’t want anybody from Bollywood. So Masaba was perfect. She was in the peripheral… not connected to Bollywood yet connected. I wanted to pick women who were old enough and not afraid to show who they were. So I was looking out for such women who were not afraid, who were bold. I was following Masaba on Instagram and her stories were just the way she is. She wasn’t afraid to say that she had put on weight and she would put pictures of her flab. I loved the way she was, and I thought she was perfect. Anyways, I had always admired her for her designs and her business woman profile but I wanted to show the many dimensions in her. Her Instagram stories were stories by itself and I wanted my concept to be like that.

So how did you broach the subject to Masaba and what was her reaction?

I called Masaba and we met up at a café. Masaba was sure that I wanted to make a fashion oriented show about trends etc. So when I told her the concept, she was taken aback. But she got the concept immediately. She agreed to do it.

Were there any challenges that you faced while making Masaba Masaba?

Anyway after Masaba agreed, things slowly came together. Neenaji (Gupta) also agreed to play her mother. But the problem I faced came later… for the writers to understand my concept. But it was so clear in my head. I had the story in my head etched in bold. I met up some of the top writers and they told me we don’t understand your concept. Some of them thought it was a documentary. In fact one writer asked me whether it was like Wild Wild Country which is an Osho documentary and I was like where on earth did that come from? Some of them told me it is a great concept but they thought Masaba wouldn’t be able to act. But I was okay with the thought that if Masaba could manage fifty percent of the acting, I wouldn’t have a problem but of course, she smashed it. I’m thankful Sonam and the writers got the concept. There was this girl Purnia from Bangalore who is a stand-up actor and she did the additional dialogue. So I had a team of wonderful people which was so refreshing, not your typical film writers, totally out of the box.

But Masaba was very good. Did you have to work a lot on her acting?

When Masaba was out on the sets, she was all out there hundred percent. She was so natural. In fact, people called me up and asked me how did she do it? And I was like I don’t know. She was fabulous. From day one, she was very confident. I told her six months before we started, did she want an acting coach. But she said, ‘No, I’m fine’. All she did was a ten-day acting workshop. She really worked hard.

Was it because she felt in sync with the character or perhaps the comfort level?

Perhaps both. Also, Neenaji was telling me that when Masaba was a teenager, she wanted to be an actor. But Neenaji stopped her because she felt that in the industry because of her unconventional looks, Masaba would not get the lead role, she would get sexy vamp roles but not the heroine. Neenaji told Masaba that this wasn’t the right industry for her. But at the end, Masaba turned out to be such a wonderful actor.

So how did you go about fleshing the concept?

I spent a lot of time with Neenaji and Masaba and I wanted to explore the way they were, how they thought, their relationship with each other. I wanted to explore the real side of them. For instance, Masaba is a celebrity and people think she has all the money of the world. But at one point of the episode, she didn’t have enough money and her accountant was chasing her all around. That happens to all of us. It’s happened to me too. People say you’re this producer etc but even I’ve had moments like that. So you realise what your perception of a celebrity actually is. What happens with public figures is that there is mask and you see what they want you to see. Mostly you can’t get through that wall they have around them. But at the end, they are just like you and me. So I was clear that I wanted to show the inner side here.

How did you get Neena Gupta to come onboard?

I had worked with Neenaji in Saath Phera long time ago. I remember 12 years ago, she had met me when I was the Head of Colors and she said why haven’t you worked with me? I had heard she had got married and moved to Delhi so that was in my head and in daily soaps, you need the actors to be around, and it didn’t occur to me to pick up the phone and check. We assume these things and that was a mistake on my part, and we have used all this in it. Imagine Neenaji had to put up on her Instagram that she was looking for work. It was such a fantastic thing. Imagine this National award actor doing this… and we used this too in Masaba Masaba.

You’ve called it a fiction but have you used a lot of real stories too?

That scene where you have the accountant telling Masaba that she’s put an extra zero while buying shoes had happened to me. I was so embarrassed but that’s something that happens to all of us. How Neenaji and Masaba were in Masaba Masaba that’s how they are in real life. The clothes they wore in, that’s what they wear. A lot of people told me that where did we get those kurtas Neenaji wore? Well, that’s how she dresses up, we just bought fresher pairs. So the essence of Masaba Masaba was how Masaba and Neenaji are like in real life.

I believe you had an all women’s team mostly…

95 percent of Masaba Masaba were women from the direction department, editing, costume to everything. All the HoD’s were women. So there was a comfort level and we had fun shooting. Before we started shooting, we – the director Sonam, our team of writers and I would go to Masaba and Neenaji’s house and hear them out. There were some stories which they said were strictly private so we were okay with not including them because the stories we had were so many. So we got to know them really well and that is shown in Masaba Masaba.

So will there be a sequel?

Let’ see. The response has been fabulous so lets see. We haven’t planned anything out so lets see…

So before Masaba Masaba went on air, what were you going through?

Well, I as a person has always taken risks. But I had the gut feeling it would work this time. I have always done that in my career. Perhaps it’s because of my background. My grandfather Babaurao Pai was a film maker and he was one of the partners in V Shantaram’s Prabhat films. So I come from a film family but all the same we were so non filmy. I was brought up in a bubble because in my home there was never any discrimination. I never knew of any inequality until I started working in Zee in 1993 and that’s when I realised the world is a kind of different place from what I was living in. It was kind of revelation for me. Its not all hunky dory for women in the real world. But in Zee, I met up with all working women and that’s when I discovered it’s a different world, and that’s when I started getting fascinated by unique women concepts. Even when I worked on Saath Phera which was a turning point for Zee, the concept was different. So when I took over Zee, I was pulled out of my zone which was heading Zee English where I would travel abroad often etc. I was also seven months pregnant with complications. And I was in the hospital bed but they told me I had to head Zee. So I was running Zee from a hospital bed at first (laughs). But that’s when I realised I couldn’t tell stories form my point of view, I had to look around and find stories of women. So Saath Phera I wrote about my son’s nanny. Saath Phera was written with her point of view about complexes of a dark girl. I always looked for ideas from other women’s point of views.

So while you’re talking to people, you’re thinking of stories?

I’m always looking for stories. I love women’s stories. Like Balika Vadhu… I had the same feeling for Masaba Masaba as I had for Balika Vadhu. Everyone told me it wouldn’t work. They told me I had gone mad. They said who would be interested in a child bride? I remember there were a lot of American guests with me at that time and they were aghast when I told them it was a story of a child bride. But I said, no I believe in this, I will go with it. I was more determined to push it.

You’ve forayed into Bollywood too from tv, how was the journey?

The journey has been great. I enjoyed Tv and then the OTT platform. For films, I left my high flying job with a lot of money to make Oh My God… which I totally believed in. But after that, I never found anything that excited me. But the OTT platform has got me excited again because I can do the show the way I want to.

Is there a lot of Ashvini in Masaba Masaba?

I think there’s a lot of Ashvini in Masaba. A lot of Masaba in Ashvini. In fact you’ll find a lot of yourself in it. In fact, a lot of men also loved it.

What’s next for you?

I have a few projects on. Now that Masaba Masaba is done, I need to get back to them.

Your husband Sachin is a director…

I never do anything without telling Sachin about it. He’s like my bouncing board and though I may not go with his suggestions all the time. But I never go without telling him about my concepts first. Of course, I do what I want and some times of course, I‘m like oh no, I should have taken his suggestions. But yes, he is always the first one to know about my concepts.