Adapting a book into a web series is never easy—especially when the book already enjoys a strong emotional connection with its readers. But director Prashant Singh has done it before with Dehati Ladke, and with Pyar Paisa aur Profit, he dives back into the world of literary adaptations and shares that it can be quite challenging. “After directing Dehati Ladke, which too was an adaptation, I was excited and a little bit cautious too, as translating a book onto the screen comes with a great deal of responsibility,” he said. The web series is based on Durjoy Datta’s 2008 novel, ‘Now That You’re Rich… Let’s Fall in Love!’ And while the core of the story has not changed, a few tweaks were made to make it apt for the 2025 audience. “The core of the story—the emotional arc, the characters’ intentions, the themes—has been kept intact. But we had to update the setting and the characters to reflect today’s world,” he shared. He further said, “The way people communicate, their motivations, their relationships—those dynamics have shifted, so the story needed to evolve too.”
Durjoy himself was part of the adaptation process, which made the task easy. Prashant further said, “The book was originally written in 2008, and naturally, the world has changed a lot since then. The core of the story—the emotional arc, the characters’ intentions, the themes—has been kept intact. But we had to update the setting and the characters to reflect today’s world. The way people communicate, their motivations, their relationships—those dynamics have shifted, so the story needed to evolve too.” “Of course, adapting a novel into a visual format means you can’t keep everything. Some things that work beautifully on the page just don’t land the same way on screen, so we had to let go of a few bits that readers may have loved. It was a very collaborative process, though, and the writers worked really closely with the original material. In fact, they’ve told me the show is actually a step up over the book—so I’ll take that,” he added.
The journey from script to screen came with its own challenges, as a “book gives you the luxury to linger—to get inside a character’s head, to explore little moments.” Prashant added, “But in a show, you need to keep the story moving while still hitting the emotional beats. The biggest creative challenge was honestly deciding what to leave out. When you’re attached to the material, everything feels important. So carving out a clean, tight narrative that still felt emotionally satisfying was a constant push and pull.”
And of course the characters, too, evolved with time. He said, “Every character you see in the show still has the same soul as they did in the book. But the world around them has changed, and so their reactions, choices, and circumstances had to evolve too.” But to maintain the engaging mix of romance, conflict, and realism, Prashant confessed that they had to restructure or sharpen to keep the momentum going, especially since attention spans and storytelling expectations have changed. He added, “But nothing was changed just for the sake of it; it all came from a place of love and understanding of the source material.” And finally, when asked to pick his priority among Pyar, Paisa, and Profit, he laughed and said, “Profit in both Pyar and Paisa!”
