There were a lot of aspects weighing on television journo A Sanjeev Joel Kumar’s mind before he was to take charge of the docu-series Bathuku Chitram that recently completed a 150 week-run on Sakshi TV. No doubt, the prospect of gathering unique stories across communities, villages in the Telugu-speaking states excited him, but what he wanted to ask himself was a reason why people would watch it, when most of his counterparts generate the best of TRPs with content related to cinema, cricket and politics. He was particular on the show’s apolitical nature, it had to be unique to get an insider’s view of the arena and treat it in a way people would sit back and watch it. Being an avid watcher of BBC documentaries, he knew of the standards he had to meet with limited budgets, given the show’s niche audience appeal. That he has bagged multiple awards over these three years for the show isn’t his only success, his ability to prove with the numbers and complementing it with quality has earned him reverence across the journalist fraternity too.
The show continues to focus on specific communities like musicians, farmers, migrants, labourers, minorities, those who work in unique professions while also touching upon aspects like nostalgia, sports , music, crime and religion in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. If he has to pick one episode that gave him the impetus to do better, it would be his show on Tiger Trackers, that highlighted the methods that authorities adopt to count the number of tigers in a particular region, for which he went to Nallamala Forest. “Though the network of the channel did help me gain access in restricted regions of the forests, we shot exclusive visuals of the tigers instead of using stock images for the episode, thanks to the help that we got from the Forest Department. The personal high that I got with the response, TRPs is still unmatched,” Joel reveals.
What helped him in his course is media experience over the years, given the wide range of human-interest, lifestyle, and crime stories he had specialised in. “It helped me unveil new facets of the people that I were to meet. While I rely on spontaneous ideas on the range of topics that I would want to explore, what gets me more worried is the time I spend after the shoot as I sit on the editing table before it’s aired. Luckily I’ve never been short of inputs all along, most of the time I spend beyond work is at the physical and the visual libraries. Consistent literature reading has been integral to provide references to the places I’ve visited.” Among other episodes that he considers his best are those he shot with the workers pertaining to telegram offices on the last day before it was scrapped, on a bus driver who rescued about 60 people during the Dilsukhnagar blasts, on the Anglo Indian community that’s a majority among train-drivers besides the show on independent singers.
Interestingly, Joel completes all of his episodes to be aired across a month in a week’s time. He talks to his sources across each village he’s heading to, coordinates the visits over four days and is back doing stories on science and technology for the channel. “Eliciting reactions from people is a journalist’s job, but things haven’t been smooth every time. For an episode I wanted to do on the life of a joginis, they weren’t forthcoming to talk. I had to be careful in eliminating political references and yet get spontaneous answers.” Both the 100th and 150th episodes on Bathuku Chitram in fact give a picture of what goes behind the screen to shoot the episodes, from the permissions to the shoot to the production work. While Bathuku Chitram had a consecutive 54-week run till 2013, the other episodes only resumed a year later, given the slot was reserved for the election phase.
“It’s all because of my media gurus and lecturers that I’ve been able to come this far. With every episode, I have only gotten more empathetic to the communities that I’ve met. They are true heroes for facing problems and having the courage to speak their heart out. I was grateful to not have any interference in my content to date,” Joel signs off, having to leave for Vijayawada to be felicitated for his efforts in the show by the Bharath Prakashan Trust commemorating the Narada Jayanti.
