Mitu’s short-format TV series Nishabd for Atrangii is based on LGBTQIA+ community: This genre is being explored for the first time

“It’s the first time that this genre is being explored on TV. I am calling it a Rainbow series as we are covering a wide variety of things under this category". Each story is waiting to be told and each story is different from the other. They are stories of acceptance, love, relationships, acknowledgment, coming of age, self-discovery, the story of allies, romantic comedies, crime, thrillers etc, all through the lens of ‘Love Is Love’,” she says.

Mitu is humbled that Atrangii has backed and encouraged her to tell the stories she wanted to. It was after all not easy to find a platform for such a subject. In fact, she was surprised when the Atrangii team said they wanted to showcase such different and real stories.

“I had gone to pitch to Ullu in December-January, to Rajkumar Jhanjhare ji, Anjali Raina ji and Vibhu Agarwal sir. But it did not work out. When Atrangii came into existence, they called me and asked for concepts around LGBTQIA+. I was pleasantly surprised that someone was keen on making content on a topic that is usually considered a ‘taboo’, especially on TV. We got back to them with two stories. But they wanted to make more and all of March under the guidance of Rajkumar ji (now the content head of Atrangii) and Ankit Nagpal (creative lead), so we developed a few more stories. We took them to Nivedita Basu (head of programming) who added value to it. Then it was presented to Anjali Raina (Atrangii Country Head) and Vibhu Agarwal ji who gave it a green signal and we are now where we are,” she shares her journey with Nishabd.

June is considered the pride month. Ask if she feels the series is more relevant now and she answers in affirmation.

“This show should be a conversation starter to make being gay/lesbian stories normalised. We have to understand that both heterosexual relations and homosexual relations exist in this world. It’s time we speak about these issues openly and not brush them under the carpet. We should say it with ‘pride’. The Atrangii channel content team comprising Rajkumar ji, Ankit, Nivedita, Anjali ji and Vibhu sir believed that such stories need to be told, it’s time. They asked us for content and we provided it. It was challenging at first as it’s our first time in this genre. My team and I were nervous about it but as we started writing more we realised we are not new to this. These are relationship stories which are our forte. My team that is my creative director Arshima, team of writers—Aakriti Anand, Goldy Jaiswal, Neha Srivastava, Anjali Bahura and Tapasya Udaywar— who brainstorms ideas along with me before we pitch, we all have given everything to this series. We all made this happen together and had a wonderful time making it. Arshima also directed a few episodes and did a brilliant job,” she adds.

Content is king and if that is strong then the viewers will definitely like it. “The content is for sure a conversation starter. It’s deep, and asks questions that need to be answered. Some stories are dark, some are light-hearted, but all of them will make you think and probably speak up too,” she says.  Talking about the actors who are a part of the series, Mitu reveals, “We have two special things in our episodes. One, we try to use a song to highlight the emotions in the episodes. Two, we have at least one well known TV face in every story. We have Sai Deodhar, Malavika Shivpuri, Jatin Shah, Amit Varma, Deepak Qasir, Naveen Saini, Gautam Chaturvedi, Arshima Thapar, Lavin Gothi, Yashashree Masurkar, Palak Jaiswal, Ahan Nirbhan, Ramanash Bundela, Smita Kalpvirsh, Krishna Bharadwaj, Khushwant Walia, Shruti Kanwar, among others who are a part of this series. A famous TV director has done a cameo in it. The series marks a few comebacks and first times.”