سيرة
Shailja Kejriwal is an Indian media and entertainment professional, producer, and writer who is most notably known for her repertoire of path-breaking content that takes a deeper look at the interplay of human relationships across age, gender and societal biases.
After introducing the concept of prime time television with daily soaps in the 2000s, she launched television movies with Star Bestsellers (1999-2000). This was the first-ever showcase of tailor-made films for television and introduced some prolific filmmakers, including Rajkumar Hirani, Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Kashyap, Hansal Mehta, and Sriram Raghavan among the Indian audience. She has also co-produced critically acclaimed Hindi films like Madaari (2016 ) and Qarib Qarib Single ( 2017 ) .
Shailja's brainchild, and very first initiative to bridge the gap between cross border rival countries in 2014 was Zindagi TV that introduced an entire nation to over a hundred shows from Pakistan changing the landscape of Indian television overnight. However, following the 2016 Uri terror attack, Zindagi removed all Pakistani shows from their lineup.
Shailja's second initiative was called Zeal for Unity, a unique peace initiative aimed at bringing together filmmakers from India and Pakistan on a single platform, for the first time in 60 years. Later in 2020, when Zindagi became a digital only channel, she ventured into producing original content for Zindagi on ZEE5, with its first original critically acclaimed web show 'Churails' directed by Asim Abbasi. It has been hailed as a groundbreaking series that broke stereotypes about Pakistanis and abandoned oft-used tropes in Pakistani television. This was followed by 'Dhoop Ki Deewar' , a cross border love story ,that created a huge stir in the media causing a ban of ZEE5 in Pakistan. Her next production 'Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam' in 2021, an anthology series by British-Indian director Meenu Gaur bagged 'Best Anthology' award at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2022 in Singapore.
Shailja's upcoming production venture directed by Asim Abbasi - 'Barzakh', is set to bring Fawad Khan back to Indian screens and recently made its World Premiere at 'Series Mania' festival in Lille, France in March 2023.
Shailja's other prominent initiative includes Zee Theatre (2015); which revived and cataloged Indian theatre, revolutionizing content viewing in India. It was commended for being the first-of-its-kind initiative to bring the nuanced art to a wider audience through television. Zee Theatre presented over eighty notable plays to be aired on television. Shailja is also actively involved in co-productions for South Asian content and aims to showcase unique stories for a global audience.
After working for media organizations like NDTV, where she was a part of the founding team of NDTV (Imagine) and with Star India, where she headed the content and communications for over 8 years, Shailja later joined Zee Entertainment and is currently the Chief Creative Officer, Special Projects, Zee Entertainment Enterprise Limited. She has been the Juror for International Emmy Awards in 2020 and 2023.
Shailja enjoys reading and you will seldom find her without a book on her world travels.
