/> He's just returned from his honeymoon after the much-hyped marriage to Sanvari Alagh. And Samir Nair is baffled by the media attention his marriage attracted. "I wasn't here. My wedding was in Jaipur.

But I was surprised to see all this attention. I'm a very private person. ...We invited just two hundred people in all-- my friends, Saavri's friends and her parent's friends, that's all."

Sanvari is no longer part of Star. "She quit before marriage. She's not working right now because we're trying to get our home together. Then she'll get back to work."

Samir and Savari went to Santo Rini in Greece for their honeymoon. "We went to this island that was supposed to be civilized and dignified. But I finally got to know what it meant to say it's all Greek to me ha ha...But seriously my life has never seemed better, professionally or personally."

Media interest in marriage shows that Samir has arrived. "I'd like to think I'm far from arriving. Because there's lots more to be done."

Back at work hectic activities seem to afoot at Star. Says Samir, "Our first historical Prithviraj Chauhan has just started. Earlier during the days of national television we had great historicals like Chanakya, Great Maratha and Tipu Sultan.

We've spent almost three times more money on this project than the average –or not-so-average—serial. It has no budgetry parallel. We're continuously trying to break into new genres.

We had great success with Nach Baliye on Star One. And now we're coming back with the second innings of Nach Baliye...

Our new show Heartbeat creates a new variation in the game-show genre. I always support my team to do new things. Now after a historical we're looking at doing a full-scale mythological. A good story never fails."

Nair feels there's a revival of interest in past cultures. "Not just in this country, but all over the world. As long as the story is well told. In Hollywood Troy, Gladiator, Alexander or Da Vinci Code were made. History should be made interesting to be palatable. Prithivraj had never been been done. He was the last great Hindu king."

Star is looking at full-on mythologicals now. "We're doing many new shows. In a month's time we launch Ravi Chopra's Viraasat which does something different within the same format. We're not consciously moving away from our staple diet. But we're introducing a lot of variety.

We're now looking at a grand mythological. We've had reasonable success buying the rights and telecasting Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan and Krishna.

So far the perception that mythologicals are downmarket together with the prohibitive costs of going into the genre prevented us from going into it.

Also, when Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan and B.R. Chopra's Mahabharat were done for national television there was no technical wherewithal to do them with ample flamboyance. Now we can bring all of that acumen into play."

Star is currently contemplating which mythological to go into. "We can either do one that hasn't been done, or we can go back to one of the mythologicals that has already been done, like they're doing in Bollywood."

Star is also looking at doing desi versions of eminently successful international shows like Desperate Housewives and Lost.

"Everything is cyclic. And it may be time to go back to good old drama. We can re-make a drama like Desperate Housewives. Reality television had become the mainstay of television the worldover. That's changing now."

Samir says Star's biggest failure in recent times would be the overall performance of Star One. "We're still seeking substantial gains after Nach Baliye and The Great Indian Laughter Challenge. We want Star Plus and Star One to be the no.1 and no.2 channel."