Producing Women
After three decades of television in India, women have finally begun to enter the production arena in a big way. They are no longer just pretty faces on screen, for today Indian women are involved in every department of television production: in directing and producing shows, handling cameras, designing settings, script-writing, coordinating, you name it.
Partly, this has been helped by the unshackling of the television medium and the rise of innovative satellite and terrestrial companies. Natasha Badhwar has been with New Delhi Television for over two years now. She says, "In all honesty it never occurred to me that I was taking up a profession which was considered a male domain. It was something I found challenging and adventurous and I didn't think particularly that professions may be 'marked' by gender."
Ms Badhwar chose camera-work because she loves the outdoors and was excited about putting together what she saw in a news or feature capsule. The first year was not without tension, however, because of the attitude of her male colleagues. "I'm sure some of it was due to the fact that I was a young girl being entrusted with a big responsibility," she says. "I used to feel alienated among the team of eleven male colleagues, but now I understand them."