Superior Soapolitics
Sometimes we just crave to be rid of the mediocrity that prevails on television. Star Plus’ Rajdhani is one serial that gives us the opportunity to enjoy a superior soap. The politicking in the episodes is like a ticking bomb. The serial has undergone a change in the direction and screenwriting departments. Tigmanshu Dhulia and Faroukh Dhondy are no longer directing and scripting Rajdhani. But the new director Manoj Punj and scriptwriter Suraj Sanim have retained a continuity and a flow in the narrative.

Last week there was a wedding where a character named Dilip was forced to marry a girl he had, er, dated. Dilip stormed into the bedroom on his suhaag raat and coolly - or do I mean hotly? - informed his new wife that he has been forced to marry her and that their relations shall remain completely formal and non-intimate. The girl heard her newly married husband out. Then she quietly inquired, “Is it okay if I stay in this bedroom?”

The moment hovered questioningly in the air circling the silliness that habitually surrounds our serials. Why can’t we have more soaps which delve deep into the middleclass psychosis instead of remaining content with superficialities?

Quite coincidentally, there was a wedding on the same night as Rajdhani on the exceedingly popular Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Though this one was as surcharged with emotions and tightened with tensions as Rajdhani I was impressed by the pains taken to make the wedding look opulent. Tight television budgets needn’t be a deterrent to professionalism on television.

Kyonki Saas... may not have the resources of Hum Aapke Hain Koun. But the cast dresses for the occasion and the sets are never tacky. Isn’t that half the battle won?

The two ladies on Zee’s new sitcom Apna Apna Style are fighting a battle of their own. Ratna Shah and Lilette Dubey are ideally cast as sisters-in-law. One of them, Lilette Dubey is foreign-returned. The other Ratna Pathak is purely desi. Last week she persuaded bidesi mem to observe the Karva Chauth vrat. Dubey did the famished act with relish. She managed to steal the march from Ms. Shah in almost every scene, though she had no help at all from the dialogue writers who penned puerile rubbish for the characters. A sample.
Navin Nischol tells his screen wife Lilette Dubey, “If you continue to put on weight you’ll become like... Wife interrupts, “Aishwarya Rai? Julia Roberts?” Husband shakes his head. “No, Tun Tun.” Gosh, Tun Tun ceased being synonymous with obesity aeons back. Or maybe Apna Apna Style wants to create laughter out of characters who are behind time.

Nowadays, Hollywood is generating a lot of “black” humour these days, in more ways than one. Films about the quirks and eccentricities of African American characters have become a huge market in Hollywood. BBC’s Talking Movies looked at some of these movies and characters to question their motivations. Director John Singleton defended the violence in films like Shaft by arguing that American heroes, whether black or white, have always been violent. About the grotesque humour in films like The Nutty Professor 2 actress Halle Berry argued that “others” (meaning the white filmmakers and actors) constantly making fun of blacks. So why can’t the blacks make fun of themselves? And besides, Berry argued, “Jim Carrey is always making fun of himself. No one questions him.” Why be so defensive about the indefensible? Vulgarity in any form and colour is equally undesirable.

Why can’t filmmakers own up to their responsibilites as social animals instead of hiding behind their racial or religious identity. Listening to black filmmakers and actors defending the vulgarity in black films was as bad as Sunil Dutt praising the late Kalyanji on Zee Talkies for giving a break to new singers. As though innovation for innovation’s sake can bring about a social or a creative change!

How do we defend something as status-quoist as DD1’s Jai Mata Ki? When Hema Malini has decided to be part of a pauranic soap on Doordarshan it obviously becomes special. But the episode which I saw last week featured only scatterings of Ms. Malini’s charisma. The primary footage was occupied by a precocious little girl (evidently an earthly avatar of Mataji) who paid a childless couple, Amita Nangia (totally miscast as a village woman) and Shashi Puri a visit. “Don’t you want a baby girl like me?” the shrunken Mataji lisped and laughed while the rustic couple looked completely bewildered by the sales pitch for the girl child that was put before them. “Of course we do,” the couple chorused. Who would dare to contradict a goddess, albeit one who had been cut down to size.

Zee’s new Thursday night serial Tum Pukar Lo doesn’t use the Hemant Kumar song of that title as its signature tune. Whether that’s good or bad, we can’t say. What could be said with some amount of certainty is that the soap treads dangerously thin ground. The talented but neglected Harsh Chaya plays an NRI being persuaded by his folks to stay back and look after the family business. Simone Singh, taking a break from Henna, plays an independent young woman who works in the hero’s company. Last week he threw the in-house newspaper into her face. For once, Simone Singh dropped her habitual equanimity (that’s a polite way of describing a non-performance) to look supremely startled. That’s what I call the power of the print medium.

In the meanwhile, the other medium associated with tedium has something to look forward to. Asha Parekh’s Kangan, which is ready to go on air on Star Plus, features an interesting central performance by the neglected Kartika Rane as a chulbuli bade ghar ki beti whose fate and fortunes are fastened to a man twice her age. In the first episode, Ms. Rane impresses with her confidence before the camera. After Kangan, she’s bound to be flooded with plum offers..

Subhash K Jha