Shark Tank India director offered to censor Ashneer Grover’s controversial comments, but he said ‘Main itna vella nahi hoon’

In an interaction with comedians Rohan Joshi and Sahil Shah, he said that he wasn’t aware of the show’s concept, since he hadn’t really familiarised himself with the original American version, and decided to wing it. He said in Hindi, “Jo director tha woh mereko bhejte rehta tha, ke sir aap dekh lo ek baari. Maine dekha hi nahi. Toh jab main set pe bhi gaya na, mereko pata hi nahi tha ke kya karna hai. Mereko tha ke jaise ghar pe behave karte hain waise hi kar lenge. Aur apna paisa lag raha hai, toh thoko jaake (Our director kept sending me clips, but I never watched them. And when I went on set, I had no idea what to do, so I figured I’d behave like I do in real life. After all, I was going to invest my money, so I was within my rights to blast bad ideas).”

He continued, “So, I was just being that. Jo director tha woh aake mereko bolta tha ke kuch edit karna hai toh bata diyo. Maine bola bhai main itna vella nahi hoon, ke pehle 12 ghante ki shoot karun, phir tere saath editing room mein bhi baithun. Meri bas ki nahi hai, tereko jo daalna hai daal de. Agar tu merese pooch raha hai ke kuch phatega toh main sambhal lunga. Tu woh tension mat le (The director would offer to edit some of the more aggressive moments, but I told him, ‘Do I look like I have the time to shoot for 12 hours and then sit with you in the edit suite? You go ahead and put what you want to. If there’s any blowback, I’ll handle it’).”

He said that there are most certainly ‘drawbacks’ to being this blunt with people. “Abhi bhi raat ko chhup chhup ke gande comments ko raat ke 3 baje delete maarta hoon (I still delete mean comments in the middle of the night).”

Ashneer, along with Anupam Mittal, Namita Thapar, Ghazal Alagh, Aman Gupta, Peyush Bansal and Vineeta Singh, became a household name after the successful first season of Shark Tank India.

He also spoke about what he learned from his fellow sharks on the show, and said that Anupam, whom he described as being in ‘slow-mo’, has taught him how to be a good judge of people. He called Peyush a genuinely nice person, and said that his inner Delhiite came out during his interactions with Aman.