Two seasoned TV professionals bet big on bite-sized rom-com micro-drama

MUMBAI: Forget three-act structures and hour-long episodes. Monisha Singh Katial and Ritika Bajaj are slicing storytelling into something altogether more digestible—and they reckon short, sharp narrative hits are exactly what today’s scrolling masses crave.

The duo, both seasoned pros of the entertainment industry, has joined forces to produce micro dramas: high-octane, short-form series tailored for audiences whose attention spans have been ruthlessly trained by TikTok and Instagram Reels. Their collaboration, operating under Bajaj’s Indian Storytellers banner, launches with Rent a Boyfriend, a 51-episode series now streaming exclusively on Bullet Zee’s micro-drama app. 

The premise is deliciously contemporary: three women, nursing three separate heartbreaks and one spectacularly bad idea, convince their socially awkward developer friend Neil to build an AI-powered app that lets users “subscribe” to boyfriends tailored to their emotional needs. What begins as liberation therapy spirals into chaos when boundaries dissolve, fake boyfriends go rogue, and Neil’s algorithm starts making decisions of its own.

The series, written by Bajaj, targets generation Z with unflinching precision. It explores situationships, modern dating’s messy ambiguities, and the emotional minefields of relationships conducted increasingly through screens.

“Impactful storytelling doesn’t always require a long runtime,” said Katial, the show’s producer. “Micro-dramas let us capture the cultural zeitgeist, connect instantly with Gen Z viewers, and deliver authenticity with incredible pace. Rent a Boyfriend is high drama meets high relatability. This is just the beginning.”

Bajaj, who serves as writer, is equally bullish. She’s painstakingly penned each two minute episodes with the right high points and cliff hangers to make audiences stay hooked, “The way audiences consume content has fundamentally changed. Our creative approach needed to evolve with it. This partnership lets us be agile, experimental, and hyper-focused on themes that matter right now.”

The format arrives as demand for snackable, high-quality fiction surges across social and streaming platforms. If Singh Katial and Bajaj are right, the future of drama isn’t just short—it’s lightning-fast, ruthlessly relevant and unapologetically addictive. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable; this is storytelling for the swipe generation. 

And whether attention-deficient viewers will stay loyal beyond the first heartbreak remains to be seen. But Katial and Bajaj are betting they will—one micro-episode at a time.