Saeed Akhtar Mirza to talk about his classic TV serial Nukkad

Doordarshan’s television serials of the 1980s and 1990s are still remembered fondly and watched online. Among them is Nukkad (1986), co-directed by Saeed Akhtar Mirza and the late Kundan Shah. It had an ensemble cast that included the late Dilip Dhawan, Pavan Malhotra, Sangeeta Naik, Rama Vij, Shreechand Makhija, the late Suresh Chatwal, Sameer Khakhar, Suresh Bhagwat and Avtar Gill.

Director Kireet Khurana is all set to bring forth interesting facts and anecdotes about Nukkad through an online show where Saeed Mirza will go down memory lane. Titled The Story Of Nukkad, the series will be released on the YouTube channel of Humara Movies tomorrow, 18 July.

In a trailer for the series, Mirza said he was glad he did not follow the advice of those who felt he and Shah were taking a big risk with the show. "Everyone told us, ‘You are going wrong because that’s not what the textbooks tell you.’ All textbooks tell you to keep it small, keep it tight, keep it within limits, etc, and within characters whom people can follow,” he recalled.

But Mirza said he was clear that he wanted to showcase the lives of the middle class of the time. “Television is a medium to deal with ideas. So whom do we reflect? The 75% of the population. We reflect that. One against the so-called upper-middle-class team,” he said.

The filmmaker shared how he was taken aback to see viewers celebrate the show .“There were crackers bursting in the night. It was a Monday. The programme was from 9 to 9:30pm. After 9:30pm, the city was bursting firecrackers. They were all celebrating the victory of Nukkad like a cricket match,” he recalled.