Try some surrogate viewership-E k Ladki A

E k Ladki Anjaani Si, Mondays to Thursdays, 9.30 pm, Sony. This one claims to be a love story beyond your imagina- tion. Sigh! It is the twists that worry us. It's about... 18-year-old- girl Ananya Sachdev and her journey to find her soul mate. Middle- class is the keyword and, of course, in a twisted way, surrogate motherhood. The show is the Indian adaptation of Juana La Virgen, a Venezuelan soap. Who's in it? Kanchi Kaul, Shakti Anand, Vaishnavi, Arzoo Gowitrikar and Vikas Bhalla. Story so far: Anu (Ananya) is a bright, ambitious teenager determined to fulfill her dreams of studying journalism from a pres- tigious university abroad. She lives with her grandmother, uncle and single mother, who has struggled all her life for Anu. Her family is celebrating her having won a scholarship to the best college in the US. However, Anu, post a fainting spell, lands up in hospital, where she instead gets artificially inseminated, courtesy: a bungling hospital staff. While the first episode packed in a lot, the subsequent ones have moved real slow. Upside: None so far. Shakti Anand and Vikas Bhalla don't seem to help. Neither does the 'intelligent' girl who does not even bother to find out why she is getting a gynaec test done, when all she did was faint. Downside: Slow, slow, slow. While the original Venezuelan soap at least had a 'steamy' ele- ment, an Indian soap cannot afford to cross all those maryada lines. Dread the scenes where the girl will have to fight society and go through the sob routine. So should you be watching it? Well... maybe, if you really want to know what hap- pens to Anu. We all know what will and can happen to her. But then, love stories always tend to pull a heartstring or two.