Ashutosh begins shooting his serial Everest

National Award winning film director Ashutosh Gowarikar is back again on the small screen with a serial titled Everest. Written by known actor-scriptwriter Preeti Mamgain, the serial traces the story of a young girl who sets out to scale the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.

Set in Uttarkashi, the serial is produced by known film maker Lawrence D’Souza. Initially D’Souza and Gowarikar planned to shoot the serial in New Zealand but a chance meeting with the principal of the Nehru Institute of Mountaneering (NIM) situated in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, Col (retd) Ajay Kothiyal, led them to choose Uttarkashi as the shooting locale. Kothiyal convinced Gowarikar how they had the required expertise and equipments to shoot the serial and how it would bring down the production costs too.

Finally the cast and the crew arrived in Dehradun on February 6 but incessant rains gave them cold feet and they were ready to head back to Mumbai when Col Kothiyal convinced them to stay back and subsequently the training of the cast began at NIM. .

Everest is the story of a young girl, and Army officer’s daughter, who sets out to prove her worth to her father and is determined to climb Mount Everest. For that she comes to Uttarkashi, enrolls in the NIM and finds her allies in two boys. The story follows her climb to the top of the highest peak in the world amid a little romance and a bond of friendship that the trio form during their training and eventual climb.

The serial’s cast also includes actor Milind Gunaji who essays the role of Col Kothiyal, as the principal of the mountaineering institute, and Rajat Kapoor as the sponsor of the expedition, and three new actors.

This is not Gowariker’s first tryst with TV, he acted in the 1987 popular TV series Kachchi Dhoop, directed by well-known actor Amol Palekar and also starred Bhagyashree.

The cast and crew in undergoing training and acclimatisation at the NIM these and after week or ten days they will proceed to the Dakrani Glacier, ahead of Uttarkashi which will be depicted as the base camp for the Everest expedition in the serial. The team will by next month go to Kathmandu, Nepal to shoot the final portions of the serial.