Along with good friends Paresh Rawal (Bollywood star) and Anand Mundra, Hemal Thakkar established Play Time Creations in late 1999. The trio have since then produced both fiction and non fiction programmes for entertainment channels. The company's latest fiction programme Shubh Mangal Savadhan, completed a successful run of 204 episodes on Sahara Manoranjan.

Thakkar been associated with the Gujarati theatre since 1990 as an executive producer for several plays; and formalised his own theatre company "Natyaa Saurabh". He has produced several Gujarati plays since then; and last year he won the jury award for best play Tame Mane Gamo cho. Recently, he launched a musical play Natu I love you starring TV star Deven Bhojani and Vaishalee Thakkar.

After a short stint in direction, Thakkar joined a upcoming entertainment network AIN as creative director programming. Subsequently, he was associated as a creative consultant for two shows Ritu Sahar and Zindagi ek Pal.

Thakkar's aim is to ensure that Playtime Creations evolves into an art corporation promoting new and dying art forms. Thakkar spoke to indiantelevision.com's Ashwin Kotian about comedy on Indian television. Excerpts:

Why has comedy not really taken off on Indian television?
Comedy is perhaps the most equally divided; but surely the most underemployed tool in our country.

As you know, comedy is a serious business. But going by that logic, it means there is a scarcity of 'serious' people to make 'seriously' good comedy.

Do you feel that channel programming teams haven't really explored the potential of comedy? And what about audiences?
Comedy is a difficult genre to judge in principle - especially from the network's point of view in this competitive market. It might be a risky proposition unless you are confident that the audience will watch a comedy and react. It's not easy to predict whether a person can sit in his house and experience happiness by merely watching a particular comedy. More importantly, audiences are ruthless to comedies - if they like it, they love it; and if they don't, they hate it and they let you know about it.

There is a need for good humour now - more than ever before. We see lots of depression all over. As entertainers, we should take the responsibility to lighten audience moods. In this comedy genre, attitude is as important as ability. It is about time we turn the tested formula upside down.

Do time slots play a role in the success of comedy shows?
I feel that times and mindsets are changing now. Earlier, the fixed comedy band was 7:30 pm, which I personally believed was a very wrong time band for this genre. Comedy has a wider reach and appeals to male and young audiences. Therefore it should be on the prime band.

And Star Plus has already proved this by promoting comedies like Khichdi and Shararat and fetching excellent ratings too. Promotion of this specific genre hasn't been seen in a long long time. But, now channels have started doing it.

So what is the right mix for comedies?
Well, topping the list is a creative team that gets passionately involved in making a good comedy. We have a paucity of creative 'comedy' talent. In fact, to draw a parallel - creatives for comedy are like oilwells which are frequently found only in the Middle East. So it's like - we have to go searching and searching till you find the right one.

The same is true of performances too. It's almost impossible to find the right casting. Especially, the small roles which might be episodic but are of so much importance that I have had sleepless nights going through the casting part of making comedy. And of course, the work environment while making a comedy is of equal importance. The cast and crew have to be happy within to project it outside.