MUMBAI, June 25: Chanakya has been outmanouvered, and very few are surprised. Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi, creator and director of the serial on India's own Machiavelli is out of Zee after only six months since he took charge of the channel.

Dwivedi allegedly stepped on so many toes that media watchers were avidly watching the fate of this Zee head. And sure enough, like Kamlesh Pandev, Nitin Keni, Ashok Vaishnavi, Lahiri and Karuna Samtani before him, he finds himself out.

The bone of contention seems to be Dwivedi's big budget serials like Ek Mahabharat and Chanakya, both of which have been given the boot.

Dwivedi had loftily claimed that Zee would no longer air frothy insubstantial serials, and would instead educate the masses with historicals and costume dramas, which he felt were also appreciated in other countries where Zee has its footprint. But the more realistic demands of commerce seem to have swept away these ideals.

Dwiwedi still does not agree that throwing out all those soaps was a faux pas, and that historicals, per se, are not exactly viewers' idea of entertainment. ``I still claim that it is the historicals which have and which will generate income, but my mistake was that I had pitted my programme against Krishna, which is very popular,'' he says. Dwivedi will now l revert to his first love: direction. ``I'm certain I have a place in the film industry, and I'd like to go back to it. I've realised I do not want a career in broadcasting,'' he asserts.

He now takes off for his new project - the film Khajuraho ki Alkaon based on a novel by Shankar Shesh.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.