Filmmaker Rohan Sippy seems to enjoying the criticism levelled against him for remaking a cult favourite TV series, The Office, in Hindi.
However, the Bluffmaster director is not bogged down from the criticism he has has received from across quarters and in fact, understands where it is coming from.
Stating that he understands that mostly people are affected by the remake because they think it is sacrilege to even attempt to “legitimately remake the original show”.
“When you are taking of such a loved show, and knowing how loud social media is, I was prepared (for the comparisons with the original one), and it has been on expected lines,” Sippy told IANS.
“The most vocal and critical ones are the Indo-Anglians (a wonderful phrase coined by author Sajith Pai), younger Indians who are growing up on western culture. Most love the US version and are offended by our take. For them, it is sacrilege to even attempt to legitimately remake it,” he added.
Sippy has co-directed The Office with Debbie Rao. The show is an official adaptation of the international series of the same name. It is a 13-episode mockumentary series that chronicles the lives of 9-to-5 employees at a firm named Wilkins Chawla, as they navigate through their routine that invariably gives rise to comical situations.
Rohan also said that the criticism that they have been facing is of the same kind that the US version faced when they remade the British original.
“There are many others, probably far larger in number, who haven’t seen the British or US versions. They seem to be enjoying this kind of comedy, which is relatively new on such a mainstream platform in India. Hate as well as love is great, as the only unpardonable thing in this business is if people are indifferent to what you’re doing,” said Sippy.
Talking about the nitty-gritties behind the work on an official adaptation, he further added that he came on board long after the decision to remake the series, characters, plot and setting had been taken.
“Back in 2008, we had produced the first mockumentary in India, ‘The President Is Coming’, so at the time we had worked a lot on adapting that kind of format. Now in the case of ‘The Office’, almost all of the big adaptation decisions on setting, plot, and characters had been taken by the time I came on board as one of the directors. So I can claim no credit for translating ‘that’s what she said’ to ‘baby bhi yehi boli’. I got more involved on an episodic level.”