Let's talk about TV. Specifically, the Hindi
shows, because I have no idea whatsoever about other languages' and would like
to refrain from generalizing.
I have a few questions, for which I try come
up with some sort of answers.
Firstly, I wonder why there are no shows about government, bureaucracy and politics? And before you say, "hey! who wants to see that?", let me tell you about a show named "Ji Mantriji". It starred Late Farooq Sheikh as the Minister and Jayant Kriplani as the Secretary of his department. This politician-administrative officer duo were part of a satirical sitcom that had political plot-lines and was filmed in front of live studio audience, aired in 2001. That, right there, has it all. Before the advent of Social TV (use of social media for and with TV), the only way to gauge real-time reactions of the audience was by filming in front of live studio audience. Also, the show had everything from SAARC and Commonwealth to everyday challenges and achievements of our administration, in a light hearted manner.
Still, if you are like, "dude politics
is not my cup of tea", tell me, are you a fan of American TV shows like "House
of Cards" and "Scandal"? There you go. They
may be of different genres and have brilliant storyline and actors, but they
are political dramas. And just to reiterate, "Ji Mantriji" had
brilliant storyline and actors.
Next, why don't we have any talk shows? Not the ones on news channels. We did/do have "Koffee With Karan", "The Front Row with Anupama Chopra" and "Rendezvous with Simi Garewal". But they're mainly cinema-centric. Where are the all-round entertainers like Shekhar Suman's "Movers and Shekhars" or "Surabhi" hosted by Renuka Shahane and Siddharth Kak? The former had a monologue on popular events/happenings of the week, loaded with puns and punches and fun interviews of actors, musicians, sports-persons and leaders alike. While the latter was a cultural show with music, art and quizzes, and was featured in Limca Book of Records for receiving the largest measured audience response ever in Indian TV history. As someone who has an appetite for all this, today I have no desi option, but to tune into the US exports like "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers".
And now let's address the elephant in the room. The daily soaps.
Two days ago, on 3rd April, it was 28 years ago that IAF Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma had strapped himself in the Soyuz capsule to go to space. Our Mangalyan is orbiting Mars since 2014. We are the nation who has had a female President. The biggest cultural export, Yoga, is from our country. All this and many more feats have taken India to heights and the world finally sees us more than the land of snake-charmers.
And then Indian TV throws shows like "Naagin"
and "Vishkanya" in our faces. I mean come on! Okay okay, the
argument is that dragons and magic may not exist but we love "GoT",
but please do you really think "GoT" and "Naagin" should be
in the same sentence? LOL, I think not.
Things that I have learnt from our daily soaps are many:
- Be it day or night, the ladies have no
bad hair days. Even when the protagonist wakes up from bad dreams, not
one hair strand has moved. When I wake up, my head looks like the
creatures of the night played tug of war with my hair. Also,
make-up: same story.
- Family: Mothers-in-law are wicked witches. Husbands
blindly love their moms. Or did not want to get married to their wives but
didn't tell their moms as they didn't want to hurt mummy. The bahu, no
matter how much educated, stays at home to do chores. The family has
multi-billionaires, but it's bahu's duty to cook. And sweep floors. The
dads have no say. Hell, they have no role. A bhuaji/buaji is always
there to join hands with the dominating dadi in creating havocs for bholi
saas.
- Every show has a character who goes to jail. Like our society is filled with aunties fit
for imprisonment.
- Saree: Every lady sleeps, eats and washes in heavy sarees. Those
kind that my mother saves for occasions like weddings. As a woman, I know
the difficulty of handling a saree. And even if it's easy for some to
flaunt, dhobi charges Rs7-10 per saree to iron it. So, who has
all this patience and money? And vamps get to wear sexy blouses while the
good girl has to put a pallu on head?
- All shows start with a good theme. Evils of child marriage, single motherhood,
a girl trying to pursue sports, etc. But everything boils down to
getting married, saas-bahu and death-rebirth.
- And people easily procure things
like pistol and sleeping pills. Don't you need license and
prescription for that?
- The makers are not even putting any efforts to
choose a title for the show. Play the retro hits album, choose a
song and there is the title for my next show. Or an old movie.
Like the iconic "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi",
where it all started, borrows its title from a movie "Saas bhi Kabhi
Bahu Thi".
There is enough literature about how the 90s kids saw the best of cartoon shows. So I don't want to clutter the internet with more on that.
Instead, I'll talk about the teenagers.
Remember "Hip Hip Hurray"? Or "Remix"?
Now we have sadder shows about relationships and infidelity, because these days
school children are dating while us college/office junta is still single :P
Remember robot "VICI"- the "Small Wonder" from
the eponymous show? Now, we present to you "RAJNI"-the bahu, from "Bahu
Hamari RAJNIKant".
While I was growing up, MTV and Channel V had these cool VJs playing music on requests, solving love problems (beautiful Malaika and quirky Cyrus) and playing pranks (Bakra and Just for Laughs-Gags). Now there are as many music channels as the media houses, with no VJs. And that is because we have YouTube and Gaana.com and SoundCloud on our phones. So, poor music channels cater to TV viewers by reality shows.
In the simpler times, we had "Antakshari" and "Sa Re Ga Ma", now we have have 10s of these, both for adults and kids. And dance shows- celebrity dance-offs, celebrity pair dance-offs, kids dance-offs, mom dance-offs...
Mummy loved cooking shows and
maintained journals of those recipes. Today we have cooking reality
shows, again both adult and kids versions.
There is a lot more I would like to reminisce about, from spy show "Karamchand" to comedic "Shrimaanji-Shrimatiji", but in this age of micro-blogging I've already said a lot. But these two points I must:
1.
The only
constant in Indian TV from then and now are the mythological and historical
shows. They were addictive then, they are addictive now. It's good that Gods
and our human heros like "Akbar-Birbal" still have an audience.
2.
There is Life
Cycle curve for everything. The delightful imports from Pakistan like
"Zindagi Gulzaar Hai" or the American TV series we all are addicted
to- they all have a finite number of episodes, and a finite number of
seasons. Reason- sometimes the story ends. This should be a lesson for
our show-makers. If your show is good, you can get infinite re-runs, but please
keep it short.
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