Manoj Muntashir-hosted show 'Ananth Anaadih Vadnagar' recently premiered on Discovery Channel and Discovery Plus in India. It is a docuseries, which shows how Vadnagar has transformed from a small village to a significant city during the Mauryan era. The show tells about the civilization and its historical significance.
Ahead of the release of the show, Garima Das of Outlook had a freewheeling conversation with the host of the show, Manoj Muntashir where he spoke about what fascinated him the most about the docuseries, the importance of our history and a lot more.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Manoj, this is something we are going to witness. What fascinated you the most when you got the offer to host 'Ananth Anaadih Vadnagar'?
There are multiple factors that fascinated me. I will go one by one. The first one was that it was related to history and our great legacy which has been lying under the rugs, and people didn't know much about it. That was one thing that heavily fascinated me. The second thing was of course Discovery as a channel. I mean I have grown up watching Discovery and any association with such a reputed brand it is definitely would attract anybody and so was with me. Everything was just falling into place and that's how I thought that this is a great project to be a part of.
As you are the host you might have got the script. Personally, also, did you do any kind of research?
First of all, I am a lover of history. Even if there was no such project to be done, I am still someone who keeps on reading or researching things related to India and our glorious past. So, when this show came up, I definitely, whatever I could gather and Vaibhav Mutha, the director and he is also the writer of the show, I suppose, is also a very old and a close associate. So, I asked him to make me go through all the literature he has gone through and he sent me a file of books, and a lot of literature was shared with me and I went through I believe more than 200 odd pages before I faced the camera for the first time. Because I completely wanted to be into the subject, under the skin of it rather than just being someone who is reading a script. I never wanted that and would never do that.
Tell us about your experience and how did it help you on a personal level?
First of all, I feel proud to be an Indian and whatever Discovery has created earlier even its 'Secrets of Sinauli', 'Kohinoor' or 'Ramayan', in all these shows, Discovery has been trying to make Indians proud of their roots, legacy, and history and that has been their motto also. That gels very well with my thought process. When I came to know about Vadnagar, I came to know that when the partition happened in 1947 we lost most of our archeological sites like Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Takshila, etc. We had all these from before. But after partition, all these went to the other side, i.e. Pakistan. There was always a hunger in me that we might still have something that we haven't explored yet. In 1953, Vadnagar was marked as one of the archeological sites, and since then excavations have been going on. When you read the entire history you will know how Xuanzang came to India and wrote about India and about the life of Saswats. It has been there since forever. That kind of history educated me. Today when we see its connection with Mahabharat like 5000 years ago also there was life here, all this was so fascinating to me that after having gone through all these and shot for the documentary it took me two-three days for me to come out of the hangover which this particular subject has left on me.
If you look at the history of Vadnagar, it has fallen seven times and has risen seven times with its glory. If Vadnagar has been Saswat for such a long time which is like kind of immortal then what is the reason? The reason teaches us so many things. The basic reason is the water conversation and the way it has been done in Vadnagar, they have never wasted water and that is what kept them intake and on their feet. So, it is great learning for us also that water conversation is such a necessity. What I have learned from Vadnagar is that I won't waste a single drop of water and I want my country to be like that and it remains Saswat always.
Earlier, we have seen shows like 'Bharat Ek Khoj'. Nowadays, it's very rare to see this kind of show either on television or on OTT. So, do you think this kind of show should be made more to educate the audience?
I have watched episodes of 'Bharat Ek Khoj' multiple times. A great future can't be devoid of great history. If you really want to keep your geography intact, you have to first lean back on your history. What Discovery is doing, I think other broadcasters also do the same. We have to really work hard on our history and I would like to tell one thing that apart from being intellectual, there should also be entertainment. Then it will be a fine balance where there will be good visuals and graphics. This show in particular I think is a terrific package because I think when people will watch it, it's not just going to be educative but informative and also super entertaining at the same time.
