MUMBAI: Ajai Sinha, director of the unconventional yet true-to-life weekly Astitva-Ek Prem Kahani (on Zee TV), is exalted.

His show will complete its 200th episode tomorrow, and Sinha plans to mark the day with a grand party, "to honour the entire group for having put up a good show".

Astitva director Ajai Sinha
In the forthcoming episodes, Sinha claims to have a surprise element. He says, "I plan to introduce a new character, but won't reveal anything about it right now. All I will say is that the character will be an important addition."

Here on, Astitva will delve deeper into the relationships of Dr Simran (Niki Aneja-Walia) and her husband Abhi (Varun Badola), Simran and her colleague Dr Manav, Sinha says.
While viewers can anticipate a lot of twists and turns ahead in Astitva, the inspiration, put simply by Sinha, is "my bread".

Niki Aneja and Varun Badola in a still from Astitva
As an afterthought, he continues, "Besides, I just wanted to explore a rare aspect of life. There were a number of saas-bahu sagas doing the rounds and I wanted to direct something more real."

Sinha is all praises for Zee TV. He says he never faced any problem with the channel. "Zee saw that I had a new idea for Astitva and so gave me a free hand. Channels interfere only when a story is routine. When they see something new, they are as enthusiastic as us," he explains.