Sunshine on the small screen

Has Madhuri Dixit ever looked lovelier on television? Her tete-a-tete with Karan Thapar on BBC’s Face To Face captured her in glorious resplendence. Madhuri looked like a queen, and such a soothing contrast to some of the guests who have appeared on Thapar’s show in recent times. Dressed in a shimmering creation, Madhuri recapitulated her life from infancy to marriage, punctuating her remarks with lots of laughter and sunshine.Laughter and sunshine are at a low premium on our little window to the world. What we see happening is rather saddening. The Olympics left us defeated on the tracks. But the mecca-event launched a thousand debates on what ails Indian sports. Said Maharani Malleswari in the Hindi news on Star News. “Children start too late specializing in sports activities and too much importance is given to cricket and tennis.”Weight- lifting should be made mandatory for all serial makers. Maybe then they would provide us with more weighty entertainment at primetime. Koshish : Ek Asha which is one of Zee’s most popular soaps has turned the corner. The first part of the soap was brought to us by Family Values Incorporated. The reluctant bride Kajal (Sandhya Mridul) has accepted her mentally challenged husband Neeraj although she was tricked into marriage.
That’s where the soap should have called it quits. But when have serial makers known the virtues of economy?

What we are looking at now in Koshish is titillating suspense. Someone had been trying literally to poison Kajal’s husband’s mind by adminstering the wrong medicine. The needle of suspense points to the husband’s Mama who buys bottled capsules for Neeraj and places them in the kitchen cabinet, like jars of achar and tomato sauce. Forget about the Mamaji’s twisted priorities and Neeraj’s messed up mind. What about the poor story writer who must keep a good thing going even when the story is over and done with.That there’s a dearth of capable story writers on television goes without saying. The handful who do the needful are just filling up space anyhow. Sony’s own version of Charlie’s Angel Cats featured a story entitled Bank Robbery last week where our two super-sleek sleuths Tanya and Kareena (the third main-Charlie-main-Charlie’s angel had gone missing for a change) cracked open a case where a group of blind men had masterminded a bank robbery. Well well well. Isn’t that the theme of Vipul Shah’s hit Gujarati play which is about to be made into a big-budget Hindi film?Sony’s constantly meritorious and moving Missing was about a Sikh family disrupted by the illness and death of the man in the house. The little boy who played the protagonist Harjeet haunted us with his sensitive expressions of incomprehension, pain and understanding. But as far as I can remember, this episode was aired for the second time. Why just Missing?

Even Zee’s Rishtey on Friday featuring a story Nazrana about a relationshhip that grows between a blind homeless man (Raghuvir Yadav) and a little girl from the upper middleclass was a repeat. Of course, Kitu Gidwani in backless blouses and la-di-dah expressions was a sight for sore eyes even the second time around. Too bad Raghuvir Yadav played a blind character in the story.But the one who has really gone missing on Sony is our new Tamil superstar Madhavan. My sympathies for the storywriter of Saaya who’s currently going into convulsions of explanation about Madhavan’s character Shekhar’s abrupt departure. He isn’t so easy to get rid of, what with both the protagonists Sudha and Kamya being in love with him. While Madhavan romances the heroines down South the two ladies on Saaya bit their lips, hid their tears and tried not to look alarmed when Shekhar’s rolypoly friend (whose role is now on a roll) announced that Shekhar was away in Japan on a business trip. Even the missing protagonist’s father looked uncovinced by the lie. Saaya now threatens to become a game in shadow-boxing.Sony’s new feel-cute soap Choodiyan is so contrived you crave for the comfort of large-screen kitsch. The actors speak their lines as though they’re afraid they’d forget them before the commercial break. The Dadiamaa has hair so silvery we can mistake her for a papermoon in aerial shots. The girl who plays the mentally challenged protagonist Rushali behaves as though she has watched Sridevi in Sadma at least a thousand times. For some strange reason, Akshay Anand walked around in a towel and nothing else throughout the first episode. Naturally Dadimaa was concerned, what with two grownup unmarried grand daughters and a buxom maidservant on the premises. “Someone put egg yolk in all my clothes,” Akshay stammered nervously. Rushali giggled and jumped on her bed at the success of her prank. Look what Sridevi has done.

I guess on Choodiyan, heart-egg is the preamble to romance. But please can we have the proccedings at a lower octave? The ears hurt when everyone shrieks for effect. But at least Choodiyan is shot in the green outdoors. That takes away the edge from the ranting. Even Sony’s CID last week had an excellent outdoor sequence where a suspect was rounded up at Borivili bus stand. We could see the startled looks on the faces of onlookers and passersby as the man was trooped off hastily.We all know showbiz celebs lie through their decalcified teeth. They have no choice in the natter matter. But Kumar Sanu really outdid himself last week when he came on to discuss his new private album on Zee News. He didn’t bother to correct the two correspondents when they suggested that this was his first private album. Shouldn’t he have corrected them instead of going along with the misinformation because it suited his designs?SAB TV’s real-life drama Haadsa continues to give us reason to hope for a better tomorrow on the channel. Last week’s story was about Jessie who rescues her little sister from an abusive and drunken father and seeks shelter in a church for both of them. The woman who had undergone the trauma in real life preferred to speak from the shadows. Which was a pity. She could have told Malleswari what real weight-lifting is all about.

Subhash K Jha