Why are celebrities always being put under constant pressure to perform at press conferences? Singers are asked to "sing two lines" when they come for interviews. Blessedly dancers aren't asked to dance. But the rest of the celebrities better watch out. Another problem I've on television is to do with perception. The newshounds and news-readers are now changing jobs. They've become so closely aligned to a particular channel that whenever we see their face we presume we've switched to a specific channel. So it was with a Manish Dubey who came on suddenly on Sahara instead of Aaj Tak. And it looks like he was given a very important story to do. He was asked to find out about what Sanjay Dutt and Sanjay Nirupam intended to do with legacy of hostility left behind by Sunil Dutt. Neither of the two Sanjays were present to substantiate the correspondent's contentions. So it was Dubey all the way. Take that as far as you can. I preferred to turn away and look at a different experience altogether. That's what the eminently gifted writer-director-actor Saurabh Shukla provided in his lucid and trenchant telefilm Piano on Star One on Sunday. What a wonderful experience to watch this neglected actor go through the paces in a film that accommodated him in several avtars and personalities.

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The plot was simple. A lonely dysfunctional man keeps changing his personality and appearance to converse with a newly widowed woman who wants to sell her piano to make two ends meet.

Suhasini Mulay has been doing a lot of garbage on TV, including the wheelchaired cantankerous mom in Zee's daily Piya Ka Ghar, which she has blessedly abandoned - both the wheelchair and the soppy soap. This once-wonderful actress who made her nascent appearance on celluloid many decades ago as Utpal Dutt's co-star in Mrinal Sen's Bhuwan Shome, and was some years ago seen making her comeback in Gulzar's Hu-tu-tu, was back in her element in Shukla's film.

As the lonely frightened and confused widow, Mulay reminded me of Jennifer Kendall in 36 Chowringhee Lane.

But Piano was Saurabh Shukla's show all the away. As a man fobbing off urban loneliness Shukla pulled out all the stops to deliver a rousing performance. He cried and he laughed… and finally in the one breakdown sequence at the end, Shukla's gut-wrenching performance just blew the screen apart.

In concept Piano reminded me of Mrinal Sen's Antareen where the protagonists never met, just kept interacting on the phone till the last… A film like this certainly makes a helluva difference to the way we look at television entertainment.

I wish I could say the same about the telefilm on Sahara One called Ek Ehsaas the night before. The performances were clumsy and the plot was cloudy. I am glad Piano came the night after, or else I'd have been stuck in the belief that Indian television is going to the dogs.

That was quite a sneaky thing to do. Ekta Kapoor managed to plug her film Kya Kool Hain Hum in Kahiin To Hoga. This, in spite of the fact that the soap is going through a period of abject tragedy. The character called Akshat gets tickets for his girlfriend for the film. But unfortunately his fixation with the newly widowed Kashish puts an end to their grandiose plans.

Oh, well…. There's hope for the bereaved Kashish. Because her presumably dead husband has emerged in a hospital with a bandaged face. That means the character is ready to come back with a new face.

Ah, old actor-replacement ploy in the soaps.

Lots of déjà vu happening on the soaps. Last week I saw two confrontation scenes between two pairs of Saas-Bahus that were near identical. One was on Star Plus' Kavyanjali amd the other was on Kum Kum. In both, the two women made the same kind of faces to drive in their points. This goes to prove, you can't take the drama too far away from its roots on television.

(The views expressed here are those of the author and Indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to the same)