“Kthis kshould kbe kthe kname kof kmy kserial”, as thought upon by one of the so-called prominent directors of a genre of Indian TV serials which we fondly call as ‘Daily Soaps’. I think that many of you might have deciphered the K-code above, but for the rest, let me apprise you that it’s nothing but actually it’s synonymous to an extremely lame cliché which made some people think that prefixing each and every word of their serial’s name with the letter ‘k’ would guarantee them great success.
What’s surprising is that this director, rather than trying to impress the audience by infusing some sense and logic in his/her serial, relies almost completely upon lame superstitions, clichés or whatever we call them. But what’s even more surprising is that it is exactly these serials which perennially hang on to the Top 5 Indian serials chart! Besides that these are also the serials with one of the maximum TRPs eventually making their directors super rich and also encouraging them to further continue this silly legacy.
Looking at a rather different side of entertainment: The Big Screen. Yes! Movies… This is one sect where Indian directors and producers have made significant efforts to increase the ratio of sagacity and poignancy in their movies to the unnecessary melodrama and senselessness.
Though Indian cinema has always maintained a certain venerable level even since its inception, we have seen a gradual increase in the no. of movies (especially low-budget and poorly starred movies) and documentaries that are one-sidedly more astute, sentimental and message-imparting than their counterparts. Basically, though a bit late, but Bollywood has started delivering movies which are at par with some of the top Hollywood movies. The newly-born trait of Indian directors to adopt quirky and unique themes for their movies and simultaneously choosing eclectic topics for their different movies has been a primary factor in raising the bar of Indian movies lately.
But does the same go with Indian TV serials? From my point of view, this question doesn’t have a definite answer. But there does exist two such factors which can help us reach to a probable answer. One is that the Indian daily soap directors abstain from daring to experiment with their show scripts and the other is that even a big part of audience readily and happily accepts such shows and adds to the monetary gains of such serials.
All this has led to a retrospective situation where disruptive and unique serials hardly get any encouragement from audience and hence succumb after two to three tries. One such example is Amitabh Bacchan and party’s latest adventure ‘Yudh’. There are many such examples which didn’t get the attention and applaud that they deserved. Instead of these rare serials, the serials centered on a troubled, radically principled and an almost Goddess like girl who handles many unrealistic situations like a Wonder-Woman and in the proceedings, she also gets multiple lives, earn high TRPs and laurels from the small screen world and the audience.
Actually, the problem is not only with the woman always being the epicenter. But one other problem is that all the Indian serials that inchoate with different, pleasant and promising themes end up with the very similar bleak and predictable story line. Plus all the serials indispensably have a legendary heroine bound to eradicate all the evil forces on their very own. Why can’t we have an Indian serial with a villain in lead role like the likes of some foreign epic TV series like Dexter or Breaking Bad where the hero isn’t the holiest of persons? Why can’t we have a detective series like Sherlock which is awed by all instead of having the archaic CID which is nowadays only a center of frivolity? And why can’t we have an animated thriller like Death Note when we have already excelled a lot in the field of motion cartoons and VFX animations?
I hope you won’t confuse my idea of having our serials like that of many good foreign ones with the act of copying. I certainly didn’t mean that and I certainly don’t want that to happen. ‘24’, according to me, was a derogation of originality and creativity which directly emulated its foreign compatriot. Likewise, KBC is also a borrowed concept but the good it does to many struggling people compensates for the fact. Meanwhile, Satyamev Jayate stands out both in respect to the newness of the concept and its practical implementations.
At the last, I would like to emphasize that in a country of 1.2 Billion and maybe even more no. of beautiful ideas, focus should be to produce more competitive and sensible serials by encouraging new ideas and bringing in new people into the production industry. After all, even more than the movies, the small screen serials represent the culture and intellect of a nation. So, instead of giving some ‘Simar’ a second life, let’s just give it a second thought. 🙂
