Death of a character, birth of a star

A character dies. And a star is born. Suddenly Mihir’s death in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi triggered off mass hysteria nationwide. Anxious mothers and hyper sisters are flooding Ekta Kapoor’s and Star Plus’ offices to make emphatic inquiries about Mihir. The young Gujarati chemical engineer turned actor Amar Upadhyay is the flavour of the ‘weak’. In a nation besieged with natural and unnatural calamities, the death of an ideal son has provided an escape route from the hard inescapable pain of reality to the manageable angst of a fictional tragedy.

No one, not even the televisionary Ekta Kapoor anticipated such a widespread reaction to Mihir’s death. The episode in which the tragedy happened was brilliantly edited, specially towards the end when Daksha chachi(Ketaki Dave) finds out the tragic truth from her son. Doing away with her loud unsophisticated comic image Ketaki Dave transformed the character into a caring grieving mother-like aunt of the deceased character. Ketaki Dave shattered the screen with her restrained performance. Seven nights later when Tulsi - Smriti Malhotra, found out about her husband’s death she broke down, and so did the entire nation. The actress performed the entire breakdown sequence in one unlaboured take before going into labour. The way the warring saas-bahu pairs come together at this time of unimaginable grief ,is so real, so you-and-me!

So much talent and so much believable and heartbreaking drama. Now we know why audiences prefer to stay home in the evenings to watch television instead of venturing out to see Aashiq or Farz in the theatres. I mean, if Madhuri Dixit and Sachin Tendulkar come visiting us at home why on earth would we want to step out in the dark? Their contribution to the quake victims of Gujarat on Kaun Banega Crorepati last Saturday was pretty hefty. In terms of the joy that their presence brought, the experience was an antidote to the grief caused by natural and man-made calamities. To watch the Big B and Madhuri Dixit together for the first time on screen was a historic and a histrionic event. They weren’t as comfortable with each other as Shah Rukh and The Big B in the New Year’s special. Madhuri seemed nervous, what with the Big B pulling fast ones on her all the time. Not just the usual you-were-winning-twentyfive-lakhs-but a (pause, sigh of regret) but also the impromptu, ‘Oh watch out’ before jumping out of his seat as though he had just spotted an alien under Madhuri’s chair.

The lady looked genuinely startled out of her wits. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened when the object of the Big B’s alarmed lunge-forward was Madhuri’s favourite fear: a cockroach. Rather, an imaginary cockroach. Madhuri caught on quickly enough and played a game beyond the one for the high stakes. The cockroach-episode with Madhuri was worth as much as the prize money that Madhuri Dixit and Sachin Tendulkar won between them. And then as a bonus we got the host doing his dialogue from Agneepath from the hotseat, specially for special guest Vinod Kamble who grinned like a cat who has just discovered a tenth life. The sheer showmanship that’s on display on Kaun Banega Crorepati makes us want to reach for our prayer beads.

To round off the 2 K-specials on Star Plus, DD2 aired a superlative-defining telefilm Jannat Talkies on its Director’s Cut last Saturday. Now, here was a film which you won’t get to see in the cinema theatres. It wasn’t about two teenyboppers in love. It was about the undying adoration of a smalltown boy Tiku( the chubby Abhishek Kapoor who grows up to be the sinewy Milind Soman) for the cinema.

Director Vikas Desai who has been out of circulation for ages (wasn’t he planning a feature film with Madhuri Dixit?) let go a sixer on the tube with this heartwarming drama which had the affectionate bond between Tiku and a film projectionist in a small town(played effectively by Sorab Ardeshir) at its ore. Jannat Talkies was also about a lot of other things. The clash between the crass and the classy was exemplified by superbly interpolated footage from Hindi cinema’s classics. The rapidly changing aesthetics of our cinema was depicted in the sequence where Helen performs a cabaret in a film from the 1960s being screened in the newly renovated movie theatre in a small city.

The vulgarisation of Hindi cinema coincides in Jannat Talkies with the cinephile-projectionist losing his eyesight. At the end the corrupted director Milind Sonam sat in a darkened movie theatre watching Madhubala swaying sensuously to Aayeeye meherbaan. The tears that Milind Soman wept were for the passing of the golden era of cinema and for its complete vulgarisation which has rendered the Vikas Desais of the movie industry emasculated.

Brilliantly scripted and enacted(why isn’t the cinema grabbing Milind Soman?) Jannat Talkies was one of the best telefilms we have seen in recent times. Between them, Kaun Banega Crorepati, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Jannat Talkies rendered large-screen entertainment redundant. At least for a while. Though the sitcoms continue to be pretty sub-standard, the soaps are striding forward.

On Zee, Ravi Rai’s Gardish seems outstanding. More about that later. On the deficit side there’s Aanchal Ki Chaon Mein where a miniature Aishwarya Rai decides to elope with her teenybopper boyfriend. In the hotel lobby she runs into her Daddy Mohan Joshi and tells him she’s there for a friend’s marriage and the boy with her is her friend’s brother. Off they go to seek the boy’s mother Reema Lagoo’s blessings. But Reema is none too pleased. "You must go back at once," she orders the girl. I guess it’s permissible to show youngsters making damaging decisions as long as they live to regret their foolhardiness. Reema herself is regretting her hasty decision to back out of Tu Tu Main Main. Now she’s back doing what she’s best at. Sniping at her bahu in new episodes. With the saas-bahu in Kyunki Saas... cosying up to each other, we were missing the domestic Mahabharat.
Subhash K Jha