Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; June 19, 2017)

With the television industry becoming an increasingly attractive platform for Bollywood bigwigs, including actors, writers and producers to explore, mounting a series on a magnificent budget is becoming commonplace in the trade. The latest to join this list is Baahubali writer K V Vijayendra Prasad’s Aarambh, which has a budget of Rs 1 crore laid out for a single war sequence, making it the most expensive scene on the small screen.

A source tells mid-day, “After months of planning and rehearsing, the team decided to shoot an epic war sequence, which required the actors to train rigorously over the past few months. Moreover, the costumes and weapons were specially designed for the lead actors. A fair amount of VFX has been used to make the sequence look realistic.”

Shooting for the 65-episode show, informs the source, was held in Manali and Kathmandu, with certain portions being canned at Mumbai’s Film City. Given that Baahubali had shattered box-office records, director Goldie Behl wanted to leave no stone unturned in delivering a superlative drama after Prasad came on board. “The idea was to make Aarambh a larger-than-life experience. Since the show will witness the clash of two clans – Aryans and Dravidians – we wanted to project the war sequence on a bigger scale. The sequence was shot over a period of 10 days,” Behl says.

The show features South actress Karthika Nair and Rajneish Duggal. It also marks the television debut of veteran actress Tanuja.