Thursday, June 07, 2007

Krishi darshan or kekta kapoor?

Recently I removed the dust jacket off my TeeVee , to watch the third season of Indian Idol (yes, we idle indians watch Indian Idol) .
Guilty of not cheering for a fellow Hyderabadi in Season2 (blame entirely on my Belgium trip) ,I ensure that I try to remember to watch it this time(alas! I forget to most of the days) .
The highlight of the episode I’d watched last Friday was unfortunately not from Indian Idol but from where I’d sauntered off during the break - ‘Koffee with Karan with Kekta Kapoor’ (all the Ks only added to more disgust than the usual) I’d watched just 2 mins of the show and it was even more intolerable than all her 'Saas-Bahu' sagas put together – and so here is the highlight WTF comment by her ‘I make serials for the middleclass housewives and not for the upper strata of society which needs something more creative!’ ; I mean, she might as well say ‘I’m not creative enough!’ and all that ‘I’m going to marry you Ekta’ by Karan J made me run to the washroom (to puke of course!) .

Suddenly I see the room around me revolving and I’m transported to the -good old didi (our pet name for doordarshan) of the ‘80s and my mom rationing my television time where I could watch only 1 hour of ‘Fauji’ and 1 hour of ‘The world this week’(time not enough to drool over ‘I say chaps’ guy and Pranoy Roy).
Perhaps television in ‘80s came with a disclaimer -‘Viewing is injurious to children’s health’ but recently must have been modified to ‘Viewing is injurious to health’ .

So what went wrong? From 1 channel to 101 channels and everything churns out the same junk as if they wouldn’t want to miss the prize for the world’s trashiest sit-coms.
I am not asking for ‘Friends’ or ‘Seinfeld’ , atleast give us something like good old DD– ‘Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi’ , ‘ Nukkad’ , ‘Ados Pados’, ‘Mungherilal ke sapney’, ‘Mr.Yogi’ , ‘Karamchand’ , ‘Chunauti’, ‘Subah’ , ‘ Choti Badi Baaten’ , ‘Rajini’, ‘Vikram aur Bettal, Babaji ka Baiscope,’Ek Do teen char’, Indradhanush , ‘Neev’, ‘Circus’ , ‘ Udaan’
(Diversion1: I am avoiding Hum Log, Buniyaad, Khandhaan for the obvious reasons that I never watched them but I know for sure they were way ahead of the K-serials)

If the lack of creativity concerns you, why not adapt books into serials – ‘Kachi Dhoop’ was based on ‘Little Women’, ‘Trishna’ was ‘Pride an’d Prejudice’ and ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ which was based on a fictional Bengali detective and of course the famous R.K.Narayan’s ‘Malgudi Days’ (diversion2: recently I heard someone using the famous Malgudi days title track as a cell phone ringtone and I wished if the current channels revived the serial as well).

And does anyone remember this immensely cute animation called ‘Ek anek’?
For those who do, take a look at this and re-live your childhood memories…

20 comments:

Filarial said...

totally agree with you dont know how anyone can watch the k serials!! one show tht you missed mentioning was "flop show".. jaspal bhatti was just awesome with that!! actually television here sucks big time.. the ads are horrible.. i actually miss indian ads.. but then with all the shows I wish to watch being online I can skip tele alltogether.. never tht tht would happen even 5 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Hey Swathi. That was a nice post, brought back a lot of DD memories!!

If you're interested in watching Malgudi days again, you must check out Rajshri.com. They have the whole series for free online viewing and some good old hindi movies too.

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@filarial
haven't watched flopshow much , what with all the TV rationing :)
i quite like to watch TV in US as compared to India - there r always re-runs of Friends, Sienfeld and of course Sex and the City(which is never properly telecast in India).

@archana
thanks dear.shall check out Rajshri.com, although I doubt if I can watch it online properly since it is blocked at work and u know the speeds of the broadband at home here in India :)

Madhu said...

Thanx for the nice post and the DD Theme/Intro music is one of the best :-)

Anonymous said...

That "I say chaps" guy.. I was thinking of writing on him :).

FlyingHigh said...

Hey there...this post also reminded me of sai paranjpe's 'Hum panchi ek chaal ke'...it was immensely witty and funny not like the obnoxious comedies that you see these days. Unfortunately the show was aired when satellite TV had begun to take over so it didn't get the viewer ship or popularity it deserved.

-Shradha

twip said...

I make serials for the middleclass housewives and not for the upper strata of society which needs something more creative!

Oh right. Because 'middle class housewives' as miss Ekta so puts it, are wholly dumb and moronic and their weak systems cannot handle even a small bit of creativity.

How goddamn lame is her excuse. If she is incapable of applying her mind and being a bit more inventive, it’s no reason for her to belittle her major viewer demographic (which happens to be middle class home-makers), for god's sake.

rauf said...

Ah ! Your Majesty !
Phir Haazar Aap ke' darbaar mein.
aadaab !
thibbee, woh chalti phirti trasveeron ka dabba hum ne' bhi dekha hai huzoor.

you means we have our own desi idol thibbee soh ?

heard of some Amreeki thibbee soh called American idole wohi hai kya ? never saw that.

aap ka mutlab Shivji ki moorti ya Ramji sitaji Hanumanji ki moorti ka thibbee soh ?
that is bherry goot for Bhaarath.
Bherry nobbal and holy thibbee soh.
Indian idole hum bhi dekhenge'
Moortiyon ka thibbee soh.

one suggestion for the middal class house wife
take the thibbee upstairs ( Uppar strratta ) you will get better pictures on the thibbee. lower strratta only crying crying crying, uppa strraattaa loffeeng loffeeng loffeeng.

phir haazir honge' aapki khidmat mein huzoor
ab ijaazat deejeye'
aadaab.

TS said...

I use to love 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara...'

I think I should go watch it.

Trevor Penn said...

I wish my mom gets to hear what Ekta F. Kapoor had to say... I also hope that she is offended enough so as to stop watching any of her sad excuses for Tee Vee serials...

Oh btw, i loved the the ying-yang-ish galaxies coming together intro to signal that "didi" is now on air.

Unknown said...

Nice post. Totally agree with you on the Ekta Kapoor serials. I think it's high time she gets married, has kids and lets us live in peace.

Unknown said...

just to remind other golden serials like biniyaad, gul gulshan gulfaan, phaticahar, zabaan zambhalke, dekh bhai dekh, honi anhoni... and on and on..
i still believe those days were so blissful, we didnt have much choice, but still the serials were so good to watch.

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@madhu
DD theme intro music shows how desperate we were then to start watching TV frm the beginning :)

@twilight fairy
do write about him, how we girls in school used to drool over him **insert appropriate nostalgic sigh here**

@Shrada
yes i do remember that cute lille serial too..obnoxious is too weak a word for today's trash.

@megha
first things first, i am a big big fan of urz..
i just wish that Ms.Kapoor just vanishes frm the face of the earth - that trash on TV is too disgusting.

@rauf
sorry cant respond to u in the same lingo, but i think i got the jist - hilarious as usual :)

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@ts
i found 'Mile sur' also on youtube, u must be alluding to that...

@seashells
what u call the ying-yang - i guess we used to wait for it to come on air...

@day dreamer
and if u go by her serials, she would be married multiple times, dies a few times and reincarnated also!!!

@bala
i know good old blissful days...btw i guess u must have bin in petit seminarie then :)

Indu M said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Indu M said...

Hi Chimera. Thanks a ton for the Ek-Anek clip, I used to love watching that one. TV soaps these days are worse than junk, not even worth discussing. Whatever happened to the wonderful serials of the 80s and 90s?

I remember most of the ones on your list, also 'Bharat Ki Chaap', 'Bharat Ek Khoj' and 'Space City Sigma'. Trishna was a much better adaptation than the garish 'Bride and Prejudice'.

salurocks said...

Swathi!!!!! You Rock!!!! thanks for bringin back good memories of didi... its rocks!!!!

Szerelem said...

heh....ekta kapoor was shootin for a couple of her serials in Istanblu when I was there. It was very traumatic for me I can assure you, to see my beloved city being pimped by her.

dharmabum said...

ek titli, anek titliyaan...was recently talking to mother about this. it was so cute.

Unknown said...

Your comments brought to life the good old days of the TV we once had in India. I live in the States now, and for every now and then when I visit a friend (who has the indian channels), all I see is this long name soap operas that make me wonder....how on earth are people even watching these? when did women started wearing silk sarees with pound of jewelry and inches of makeup at home!!! and whats up with prolonging the scenes by fixes it on every character after each line? Give me a break! The shows seem absolutely devoid of script with no emphasis on creative story telling.
Sadly, they show India in such a conservative light, just in the name of culture....and would someone please ask....why on earth are women shown in the most negative fashion? is that what the so called creative team thinks of the family system in India?
My sincere hope is that this saas-bahu drama fad will blow over one day and we will see a decent show which has real creativity.