Bishaash

Zara Rahman (Shama Rahman), a young, head-strong and inquisitive woman discovers that she has inherited co-ownership of an antique shop in Dhaka after the death of her grandfather. When she moves to Bangladesh she learns that the shop also houses a supernatural detective agency. She meets young supernatural investigator Abir Zaman (Sayed Babu), his uncle Ferdous Zaman (Rahmat Ali) and his cousin sister Laboni (Arabi Rahman) and is thrown into his world of supernatural mystery, magic and adventure. The story progresses with various twists and events relating to the Zaman Family and ends with a huge unexpected twist and the darkest secret of the Zaman Family.

Bishaash is south Asia's first supernatural detective series.^[1][2][3][4] and the first serial drama shot between Bangladesh and London, England.^[5] There are 24 paired episodes, each lasting 25 minutes.^[6]

The series features dialogue in Bengali and English.^[1][7] Initially, the dialogue in the series is in Bangla with English subtitles. However, episode by episode, more and more English dialogue is introduced.^[8]

The series was part of Mott MacDonald's £50 million nine-year programme since 2007 aimed at teaching many of the poorest people in Bangladesh what project director John Shotton describes as "vocational English". One of their project partners is broadcaster BBC World Service.^[8] The series was made by the BBC World Service Trust.^[1]

The programme was an initiative of English in Action, funded by the Department for International Development.^[1] by 2017.^[9]

The storylines have a supernatural twist^[8] which includes themes of family tradition, love, evil,^[2][3] and danger.^[8]

Writers, directors and producers were recruited from the UK.^[8] Production staff includes staff from the UK as well as Bangladesh.^[10] Location manager Charlie Thompson recruited a local team from the domestic industry with basic industry experience or basic skill sets in the right areas and trained them to meet the required standards, broaden their skill bases and enable them to use them in the international arena. Half a dozen locals went through a formal training programme organised by Thompson that included seminars and on-the-job learning.^[11]

Bishaash is set in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Brick Lane, London.^[8] It was filmed in a variety of locations in and around Dhaka and a village was built in the forest region of Gazipur.^[11] It was shot on XDCAM and was edited in Bangladesh using Final Cut Pro.^[12]

Bishaash was broadcast weekly on Bangladesh Television and Bangladesh Television World^[7] from 16 October 2010.^[13][14] It was followed back-to-back with an episode of BBC Janala Mojay Mojay Shekha.^[15] and reached audiences of 20.3 million.^[16]

The series was provided without charge to Zee TV^[1][17] and was aired weekly from 6 March 2011^[10] on Zee Network's Zee Café.^{[2][3][11][18]} The popularity of the series led to a rebroadcast.^[19]

• British Bangladeshi