Shekhar Suman recalls his first live National Awards show with Jaya Bachchan was a "disaster".Shekhar Suman was once hailed as “the Amitabh Bachchan of television.” Though he never worked extensively with the megastar, he’s collaborated thrice with his wife and veteran actor Jaya Bachchan. In fact, her company Saraswati Audio Visuals, which later merged with Amitabh’s production house ABCL, gave Shekhar his breakthrough on TV with Aanand Mahendroo’s seminal sitcom Dekh Bhai Dekh in the early 1990s.Talking about how he landed the role in Dekh Bhai Dekh, Shekhar said on SCREEN Spotlight, “As a matter of fact, I was dead against television then. Whenever the phone rang, I hoped it wasn’t a TV producer calling me.” He’d already made his TV debut by then, eight years before Dekh Bhai Dekh, with the 1984 show Wah Janaab, written by Sharad Joshi, who also penned his 1987 Bollywood debut, Girish Karnad’s erotic romantic drama Utsav.“Right when I was doing Utsav, which was written by Sharad Joshi, he was making a TV show — Wah Janaab. So, in the midst of the shooting, he offered me the role of Azad, and said he could only see me doing it. I asked him if it’s a good idea to do TV, since I’m just starting out. So, he narrated the script to me,” the actor continued.Shekhar Suman found the script of Wah Janaab to be “so good” that he gave his nod despite initial reservations. “I found it very embarrassing and awkward to say no to Sharad Joshi because I had huge regards for him. Everybody told me to not do TV at the start of my career. But I said, ‘To hell with it.'” However, since he got a Bollywood breakthrough just three years later, he decided against doing any more TV — until he got a call from Aanand Mahendroo in the early 1990s.“I got a call one day from Aanand Mahendroo, who said he’s making a serial called Dekh Bhai Dekh. I said, ‘No no, I’m not interested in serials.’ Then he said, ‘It’s produced by Jaya Bachchan.’ So, I said, ‘Hold on!’ If Jaya Bachchan is backing it, and it’s an Amitabh Bachchan production, I’d have a look at it,” recalled Shekhar. Though he intended to meet Mahendroo for a narration of Dekh Bhai Dekh for just 15-20 minutes, he ended up staying the whole night, since he found the world very “exciting.”Jaya Bachchan’s involvement, Shekhar Suman recalled, went far beyond simply backing the show as a producer. The actor said, “Jaya ji‘s ABCL office was just a floor above. She was completely hands on. She’d come on the set and supervise. She took personal interest in it, which was very encouraging to see. She’d laugh her guts out at all kinds of idiosyncrasies we’d do. So ya, happy times.”Before he reunited with Jaya’s production house for another TV show directed by Ramesh Talwar, Shekhar was also approached by the senior actor to do the first live National Awards show, being organised by her company.Story continues below this adAlso Read — ‘Used my pauses as weapons’: Manu Rishi on playing Pervez Musharraf in Operation Safed Sagar“It was the first time we were going live. It was a huge disaster at the time — there was an electrical failure, and there were abuses going around in the OB (Outside Broadcast) van, which were being broadcast,” said Shekhar, laughing. “But ya, I spent a lot of time with her at the time. Bachchan sahab had just shifted to Gulmohar Park in Delhi. We’d sit at their house and ideate for hours,” he added.