Warring
defiant progenies are a huge turn-on in the soaps these days.
What do we say about Zee’s Kittie Party where all
laws of parental purity are being joyously subverted? A girl called
Lolo is desperately trying to get rid of her immoral mother (played
with lipsmacking immorality by Kunika) and find legitimacy in
‘high’ society.
The
other night the wanton mother escaped from jail and turned up
in her daughter’s house pleading to be put up for one night
of “chayan ki neend” (peaceful sleep).
Unconsciously
the sequence reversed the parental equation. It’s the mother
asking for a resting place in the daughter’s portion of paradise.
Such moments don’t fall into our laps easily as we sit indifferently
on the couch. They have to be ferreted out.
****
Nowadays
I’m enjoying the passionate pain of a haveli falling into
ruins in Sahara’s Sahib Bibi Ghulam. Though Raveena
Tandon is dressed a little too elegantly to pass off as a drunken
woman on the decline, there are moments of great dramatic reckoning
in the original novel, happily rendered at a tragic crescendo
in the series.
When
last week the faithful family servant pleaded with her not to
drink and then fell at her feet for being so audacious as to rebuke
his 'malkin' we realised that the moment was magic because there
isn’t much of that happening on television.
****
Star
Utsav is the channel that brings us all the Star goodies that
you may have missed when the channel turned the corner three years
ago. What I find interesting is to compare what the TV actors
did then with what they do now. Mouli Ganguly (Jaaba in Sahib
Bibi Ghulam), Sudha Chandran (Kiran Kumar’s wife in Sahara’s
maelstrom Zameen Se Aasman Tak) and Hiten Tejwani (Mihir’s
illegitimate offspring Karan in Kyunkii...) are all there
together in Kahiin Kissi Roz, Ekta Kapoor’s first
thriller of a soap.
I must say all three have come to grips with the grammar of television
over the years. Some TV actors move on. Vikas Sethi who starred
as one of the campus dudes on now-defunct Kyun Hota Hai Payar
has given up television. “Too much time and too little money
and recognition,” he says. Sethi has been signed to play
the main villain in a film being produced by Mukesh Bhatt.
On
the other hand Jas Arora who starred opposite Kajol (no less!)
in the film Dushman is now a part of the bulging cast in
Zee’s appalling whodunit Tamanna House.
 |
|
Will
they? Won't they?
|
Let’s
not undermine what television can do to an actor. ‘Jassi’
Mona Singh is now a household name and a face on a stamp. Now
when Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin enters the second year I can’t
see it going anywhere. At the moment I know Jassi loves her ‘Armaan
Sir’ (played by another big-screen reject Apoorva Agnihotri)
and has also discovered that Purab (played by Samir Soni, a Raj
Kumar Santoshi discovery who starred in the directors China
Gate and in Lajja opposite Madhuri Dixit) is not a
bad sort after all. Hence the soap would now create a quadrangle
with ‘Jassi’ and ‘Arman Sir’ wavering between
Samir Soni and Rakshanda Khan, respectively.
****
This
can go on forever. And that isn’t a good sign for the soap.
A lack of coherent storyline is again the bane of Zee’s newly
introduced Reth. Ankur Nayyar who looks so much like Vivek
Oberoi, plays a man whose wife Jiya has undergone a personal trauma.
And now his mom egged on by an evil Bua wanted the wife to undergo
shuddhi (purification) pooja.
Shekhar
walked in just in time, fumed and told the pundit to get lost.
This could be read as a sign of progressive serial- making in
other circumstances. Here, it’s just the scriptwriter trying
to create some shock out of a situation that’s inherently
deadmeat. At this Reth….er, rate it shall soon be
time for checkmate.
****
Strange
are the ways of television. A serious issue such as showbiz girls
being able to look after their own financial interests was reduced
to a mockery when at a party on Wednesday night Zee News thrust
a microphone into the faces of star-daughters to ask what they
did with their money.
Is
a get-together of this sort the right occasion to discuss such
sensitive topics? To their credit the ladies Poonam Dhillon, Kunika,
Suchitra Pillai and, surprisingly, Hema Malini answered the question
gracefully and diplomatically.
****
Heard
of two-in-one interviews? NDTV invited director Ken Ghosh for
a discussion on censorship and then he stayed back to discuss
whether his new film Fida had fizzled out. We should all
pray that Ghosh makes a hit film next time. He wouldn’t have
so much time for TV discussions.
NDTV
hosted a thought provoking debate on Mumbai Live. The topic?
Should films and soaps on television be censored? Censor chief
Anupam Kher sounded guarded. When the voice of skepticism Ken
Ghosh wondered who would decide how high the skirt should be hitched,
Kher piped in, “Let’s not pretend about this. We all
know exactly how high or low the skirt should go.”
Ouch!
Kanta lagaa……
