24 director Abhinay Deo refuses to dumb down content for TV

TV serials in India are made keeping in mind the lowest common denominator. That’s why television programming is what it is today,” says filmmaker Abhinay Deo. But that’s not his biggest grouse: “What really gets my goat is that we do nothing to raise the bar. We refuse to challenge audiences, we don’t want to make them aspire to anything better.” That’s exactly what he set out to do with the path-breaking TV series 24.

A new courseSon of veteran film and television actors Ramesh and Seema Deo, Abhinay began his professional life as an ad filmmaker. Even there, he thought differently; he created the award-winning Nike ad where people play cricket on top of buses. Then he surprised audiences by directing the ‘risky’ comedy Delhi Belly. “I don’t believe in box office numbers or TRP ratings,” he says. “If I did, I would have never made a film like Delhi Belly.”