Producers Taher Shabbir and Ashutosh Shah on Karmma Calling: “It’s a family entertainer!”

Karmma Calling starring Raveena Tandon is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar. The revenge drama series is an official adaptation of the American show Revenge. In conversation with Cine Blitz, the show’s producers Ashutosh Shah and Taher Shabbir talked about their show, learnings, and their journey in the film business.

According to you, what is the USP of Karmma Calling streaming on Disney+ Hotstar?

 Taher Shabbir: The USP of the show is very simple. Normally everything is a whodunnit. Karmma Calling is a ‘howdunnit’. People know that it’s about revenge. But the ‘how’ is the USP. It keeps you on your toes. The seven-episode series flies smoothly.

Ashutosh Shah: After a long time, it is a show that you’ll have a guilty pleasure of binge-watching. So, either order a nice pizza or pav bhaji and enjoy the show.

Taher Shabbir: And it’s a family entertainer. We always wanted to make shows that an entire family could watch together. It’s entertainment on steroids. It’s fun.

Karmma Calling behind the scenes

Both of you and Ruchi Narain have been friends for a long time. Does friendship take a backseat while dealing professionally?

Ashutosh Shah: All three of us bring different things to the table. Tahir and I have been collaborating since our college days. Ruchi came on board in 2006. We are like three sides of a prism and when one ray of light passes through it, it produces a rainbow. Whatever the project, there will be a value addition that all of us will do it.

And I think creative differences always help until and unless you take it to your heart. It’s more constructive than destructive if you take it positively. And it also helps you to create a lot more stuff in different ranges.

L-R: Taher Shabbir, Ruchi Narain, Ashutosh Shah

Taher Shabbir: We have a lot of ups and downs and creative disagreements. But Ashutosh and I have always been aligned because we know our strengths. After all, we also direct together. Ruchi is far senior to us. She has been in the industry for a decade more than us. Even when we have disagreements, we give a lot of importance to logic and the majority. If two people in the room are saying the same thing then there must be a reason. Sometimes, it is also fun to tell them that they were wrong.

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Why did you decide to take up the stressful job of a producer?

Ashutosh Shah: We were always making films. We started being directors first and then Taher became an actor too. I write as well. We became producers accidentally. Just for the need to tell the stories and also to enjoy the process of filmmaking. In every work of ours, we wanted to up the game. For us, producing is way beyond money and numbers. It has been an amalgamation of our experiences of working with some of the really nice producers and directors that we have looked up to.

Taher Shabbir: We were documentary filmmakers. When Sudhir Mishra offered us films, he made us executive producers as well as second-unit directors. We were only 20-somethings at that time. We didn’t realize how big a responsibility is that of an executive producer. It came very easily to our system.

We have also worked as First ADs in as many as 166 ad films. In 2011, we started directing on our own and worked with certain producers. We realized that a lot of producers were very money-centric. Our kick was not in the money but in having the power to spend money on our product.

When we produce, we make sure that we understand the needs of the creator. Of course, we understand the business side of cinema. Our great friend Mr. Viveck Vaswani always said that if you don’t understand the business of cinema, you’re not in the cinema. Shah Rukh Khan used to always teach us, “We are stars because we understand the business of cinema.” So, like Ashutosh said it is that amalgamation of knowledge has made us producers. Most people look at producing as a stressful job but we have a lot of fun with it.

Also read: ’Working with Raveena Tandon was meant to be,’ Karmma Calling producer Ashutosh Shah

You mentioned looking up to certain filmmakers. Who were those filmmakers?

Ashutosh Shah: We’ve been very fortunate to work with Karan Johar. And we’ve been fortunate to hear real-time stories of how Yash uncle (Karan’s father) used to be. While working with Dharma Productions, we saw that culture and vibe.

Now through documentaries, you see Yash Chopra when he was a director and a producer. You see that arc. It was about having everybody together. Getting money is the producer’s job and he will arrange it and he will spend it too. But taking everyone with you as you move forward is what we observed in these big names. And that’s what inspired us.

Tahir Shabbir: They nurtured talent. People think that a producer is the money man. It is not like that. I think a good producer is somebody who looks after legacy. We’ve had the blessing of working with many producers. But the reason why we always mention Karan Johar is because you only see the fun, the fashionista side of Karan. But the ethos of Yash uncle lives through him. We were with Dharma for one and a half years, but it had such a drastic influence on us as to how films should be made and the ethos of production.

What kind of stories do you want to tell?

Ashutosh Shah: A lifetime of filmmaking is a long journey and may God bless us with that. But one thing is that we want to make entertaining content. The content that will move you, inspire you and make you feel happy, sad, whatever.

We are first-generation filmmakers. Nobody is born with filmmaking skills. It can be learned. So, we want to tell stories with the same passion with which we made our first project as well as Karmma Calling. We want to tell stories that people can relate to or connect with in some way or the other.

Taher Shabbir: I think the key is that we’ve only done things that we’ve believed in. We’ve always been extremely passionate about doing entertaining stuff. But in the next five years, we want to do horror, a genre that has not been done properly in the country for decades. We feel that the time has come when the world talks about India. We have such interesting stories. So that is something that we’ve been developing over the last 4-5 years.

We also love comedy. I think comedy is a difficult genre and very few people can crack a good comedy. Like a Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind of comedy. So, these two genres we are hoping to do. But apart from that, anything that comes our way, which is entertainment, you have a script, you bring it to us. We’d love to partner.

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You might be tempted to cast a star for your OTT show but stars don’t guarantee captivated viewership every time. It is the quality of the show that matters. So, how do you balance both of these things?

Ashutosh Shah: In OTT, some stars beautifully lend themselves to the story and give you that ‘click’ but it is ultimately the content that is of prime importance because the audience is spoiled for choices.

If you don’t like this in the first 15-20 minutes, no star will be able to hold your attention till 7-8 episodes. You might watch 2-3 episodes for the love of the star. Last year, Shah Rukh Sir’s Pathaan and Jawan were huge hits not only because he is a superstar but audience also connected somewhere. That’s why they went in huge numbers.

I think special emphasis now is being given by platforms, producers, and directors to working a lot more on the script. And when you do that, even the best of the stars are excited to work with you. Whether big stars or new actors, they want to be challenged by the content. They are also hungry for great ideas and scripts.

Taher Shabbir: My perspective is fairly simple on this matter. I think as long as cinema exists, the star will always be a star. We won’t have colossal stars like the Khans and Akshay Kumar. But what the star does is that it gives you a little bit of a cushion for the investor. If we don’t have a star, we will not get the budget. If we don’t have the budget, the show quality will never be the same.

On Hundred (Disney+ Hotstar), we spent a lot of money. But it was a show that was supposed to be shot in chawls and on streets. We are still spending the same amount. But does not look grand. So, what a star does in many ways is that it gives you that little opulence. It gives you a little padding.

In Bhindi Bazaar, we say, “Bhai, picture mein mazaa nahin aaya toh uska dabba gul hai.” The audience always wants a story. We all are aware of how badly theatricals were doing because scripts were not being worked at. For us as at R.A.T. Films, we are script scavengers. We are hungry. The company is called R.A.T. Films for a reason. We are the survivors. We love to meet creatively inclined people. That’s why we don’t even call ourselves producers. We call ourselves creators.

The reason why Karmma Calling was made, was because Ruchi fell in love with the story. She came and pitched it to us. The story ignited us. When you see the two shows, they’re going to be vastly different because this is put up in a different household, a different world.

But the story is beautiful. And to answer your question about stardom versus content, we believe in fusing both because we believe we’ll go to a star only if we have a good story. So, R.A.T. Film’s ethos is that the story is the star of the film/series. And we hope that this ethos remains in our film business. So that our films do well.