Victims or shrews

Nowadays Raveena Tandon is seen everywhere on television. She even popped up on Star Gold’s Bollywood News on Women’s Day do a round- up of filmland happenings. As usual she was marvellous at what she did. One hopes the regular host Samar Khan didn’t feel left out. Women remain an oppressed lot, specially on Indian television where they are either depicted as victims or shrews or worse still, victims OF shrews. The shrewish mother-in-law in Sony’s Kanyaadan is trying hard to create a rift between her son and his demure wife whose sister is ready to divorce her husband even though he’s a good man. Last week the sister flashed the divorce papers in front of his hurt and bewildered eyes. He flashed those papers right back at her. Now if things improve the couple might start a-flash.

The saas in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Tthi is no longer a shrew. Savita’s son’s death has brought her close to her daughter-in-law Tulsi. But there’s lots of tension in the Aggarwal family in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki. The saas who was chummy with her elder bahu Parvati has been lured away by the shrewish younger bahu Pallavi. The way all three ladies are sniping at each other the serial will soon have to be renamed Kahani Grrr Grrr Ki.

Somehow or the shudder, the shrew must go on. If it isn’t the saas-bahu at loggerheads it’s two sisters who can’t stand each other in Soni Razdan’s new soap Hamare Tumhare on Zee. Last week it was younger sister Pallavi Joshi’s birthday. Though her too-good-to-be-shrew husband Akshay Anand showered her with rose petals on the occasion Pallavi pined for didi’s call. Didi Nandita Puri sulked silently, broke her brother-in-law’s camera when he tried to take a picture of the two sisters together(maybe she didn’t appreciate his efforts at generating sibling camera-darie) and then fainted in the bathroom. Bhai, kya bath hai! Hamare Tumhare keeps us interested in the proceedings. For a change the relationships are Chekovian rather than Pavlovian, the procceses at work are more complex than reflex.

DD2’s Kabhii Sautan Kabhii Saheli which started at a low ebb has now gone into a thought provoking tangent. What happens when the wannabe groom in an arranged marriage begins to make unfair demands on his future bride and in-laws? Our docile heroine Tanu(the other heroine is the spunky eyebrow-flashing Sonia) is petrified by her bushy-eyebrowed pati devil’s demands. He orders her to come and see her immediately. When she resists he wants to know, "Whom do you want to listen to, your family which is giving you away to me as daan or the person you’re going to spend your life with?" Then there’s the overweight chachi in Kabhii Sautan Kabhii Saheli who represents the classic Hamletian dilemma , ‘Tubby Or Not Tubby.’ Whenever she’s around, the serial comes alive to the sound of comic music.

Thank God, for normal music and normal people in Tanuja Chandra’s Dil Ne Suna. The telefilm appeared as part of the Director’s Cut slot. Considering Rageshwari played the female lead in this stirring drama about a woman’s shelter the relationship that develops between the truant new inmate and a benign doctor, the Director’s Cut could have been rechristened Director’s Cute just this once. Perpetrating her reputation of chic cannibalization, Tanuja sought inspiration on this occasion from Amiya Chakravarty’s classic film Seema where Balraj Sahni had played the doctor at a mental institution who’s too good to be true. Ashutosh Rana as the doctor who protects the girls in his asylum with a lion’s ferocity, oozed nobility with moving mobility. His eyes flashed anger when an industrialist offered charity in exchange for ‘one night’ with one of the girls. Ashutosh Rana defined anguished resistance when the pretty Cherry confessed her love for him. And he epitomised inconsolable grief while remembering how his sister had been gangraped when he was just a boy.

Though Tanuja makes films its female protagonists her cinema isn’t delicate or feminine. She doesn’t get squeamish about discussing the seamier side of human existence. Obviously made on a shoestring budget Dil Ne Suna was a call from the heart, and a wonderful way to acquaint us with the dark side of womanhood on a medium that revels in sanitised and etherized femininity.

Once upon a time Zee’s Rishtey used to be a great meeting point for quality and TRPs. Now the slot has become mediocre. Cheap garish and obvious in its emotional manipulations, Rishtey last week featured a story called Naata about a woman who breaks away from a bad marriage but cannot make her new husband accept her son even though the boy dotes on his new papa. A cliched plot was rendered even more trite by the cardboard characters. The first husband laughed like a hysterical hyena(not to be confused with hysterical Henna seen on Sony) and asked for Rs 5 lakhs after kidnapping his own son. At the end he was reduced to a sobbing repentant wreck. "Let him keep the ransom money," the second husband announced grandly. That’s a new way of dealing with the rising crime in the country. Just get the criminal sentimental and let him have the money. Maybe he can make an episode of Rishtey with the kink’s ransom.

Speaking of windfalls, Kaun Banega Crorepati continues to make its participants rich in ways that money can’t buy. Last week we had a doughty contestant from Kolkata Vinay Surekha who had come armed with a poem in honour of our host . The lines incorporated titles of Amitabh Bachchan starrers in way that was utterly disarming. The Big B tried to hide his emotions. Even an actor of his calibre couldn’t conceal his pleasure and appreciation at being thus honoured.

On SABe TV’s Shakespearean adaptation Pratishodh (Shakespeare would find it hard to recognise the new avatar of Othello) Anang Desai gave his screen wife a long arrogant speech on being the inheritor of a whole samrajya and then fell to the ground clutching his throat. "I have poisoned you," laughed the wife triumphantly. Aw, come on Anang Desai’s performance wasn’t so bad!

Subhash K Jha