Tale of divas 'n soaps... lather not tell

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soni595

@soni595

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Posted: 20 years ago

Okay, don't know if this article has been posted, but as soon as i read it, i thought of posting it, to let you know just how people lambast at actors and soaps.

Tale of divas 'n soaps... lather not tell

(Posted on 13 May 2005)

Sahara's Kamini-Damini is closing down. Reason? Well…. its presiding diva Hema Malini made her displeasure about the soap's puny progression clear in public, and the producers the Chopras lost interest.

Or maybe they just needed an excuse to shut down what was a bad idea to begin with. Big screen stars in soaps are a strict no-no. The sooner we realize it the better. Hema Malini's soapy sojourn would qualify as a near-disaster, for no fault of hers. She gave the double role all she had. And she certainly was more Seeta-Geeta than Mihir Mishra whose double trouble in Hey Yehi To Hai Woh is nothing but an exercise in creative vilification. And the less said about the mental regression of the protagonist in her second avatar in Piya Ka Ghar to a 7-year old joke… the better.

If the idea is to replicate what Sridevi did in Sadma then I'm afraid it isn't working. Most of the actors on the soaps are required to do much more than their capability. In Kaisa Yeh Pyar Hai, the protagonist had to pretend to be suffocating in a lift and then burst out laughing.

What a choke!

Saw this long confrontation scene between Natassha and Amrita Singh on Star Plus' Kavyyanjali which reminded me of Madhuri Dixit's confrontation with her screen mom-in-law Aroona Irani in the film Beta. Catastrophically all the lines and expressions in the soapy version of Beta (Beta-Max???) were given to the junior actress.
When you have a veritable volcano of talent like Amrita Singh why do you need to depend on a puny little furnace for dramatic effect?

I must say Indian television is developing a penchant for over-statement. On Wednesday night I watched Tenaaz Currim performing live at a Sony entertainment event. Did she really think she could pull off the Gujju accent from the serial Yeh Meri Life Hai for a full 15 minutes? There were references to Tina Ambani and Anil Ambani which I thought to be in bad taste.

When you do a skit about a specific community stay away from specifics.
Now that the end is near Kamini-Damini has gathered momentum. We've Pankaj Dheer, bedridden and ailing for ages, suddenly recovering double-quick. But shhhh… we aren't supposed to talk about his recovery. The cop on duty is evil in his designs, and must be made to feel that Kamini's hubby is still unwell.

…Just like big-budget soaps which go on pretending they have a shelf life when the tamasha is long over for them. Zee's Sarhadein is so thanda! Does anyone remember it was meant to be the Veer-Zara of the small screen? The Indian girl and the Pakistani boy seem to be submerged in superficial characters, like a foreigner named Michelle who's made herself comfortable in the heroine's home. Chances are, she will walk into the sunset with him while the soap walks into oblivion.

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DD1's un-missable Yaadein had a much-welcomed profile on composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal. It was reassuring to see one-half of the duo still alive and kicking. Because the way our film industry tends to write off creative talent, one would think the surviving half of a creative partnership perishes along with the dead one. Good… but such precious products deserve to be on a much more visible channel.

Sahara's Aa Bahen Chugli Karen is one of my favourite sitcoms, mainly for the profusion of acting talent which includes such acknowledged female maestros as Aneeta Kanwal, Himani Shivpuri and Loveleen Mishra. In last week's episode they all bitched about their husbands on the 'Nimmi Garewal Show' (ha, ha, Simi should take that as a compliment) and then tried their best to keep their respective spouses away from the television set during the telecast of the hen session.

The writing in the sitcom is of a higher order than usual. I guess this was the week of comedy because I also loved the guest appearance by the whole Khichdi clan on StarOne's Sarabhai Versus Sarabhai, specially since it pitched the two Pathak sisters Ratna and Supriya directly against each other. One was suave and snobbish, the other was stupid and earthly... Terrific comic timing, this was a high point of humour on television.

Star World's Koffee With Karan with Shahid Kapur and Esha Deol was a bit of a damp squip. For once the two guests seemed to have nothing much to say. The host tried hard to prod them into alertness. But no show. If there was anything that interested us, it was those sound-bytes from youngsters on the roads commenting on Shahid and Kareena as a pair. Poor Esha didn't even have a boyfriend to talk about.
Why not sound bytes from Esha's mom and Shahid's dad? At least the show would have acquired the wazan of wisdom, if not the perkiness of superstardom.

I was appalled to see singer Udit Narayan bragging away so furiously on ETC Bihar on May 7. "Even the superstars down South want my voice… Yeh to bahut badi baat hai."

What? He thought he would get away with such brazen self congratulation on a regional channel? In contrast there was Ajay Devgan on CNBC's Trend Mill telling his hostess that he's basically a "lazy actor."

True confessions at prime time? We get a lot of that on television these days. The most harrowing true-talk on television is invariably about rape victims. Their faces video-doctored for non-identification, they invariably cut a sorry picture, struggling to put forward their struggle for self assertion in a society where women are still treated like commodities to be exploited.

The semi-finals of Zee's Sa Re Ga Ma were a splendid showcase of singing talent, the highpoint being the two girls at the end singing Lataji's Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai. To the one who lost, the judge Pandit Jasraj said, "Never be scared of the sur."
Indian television wouldn't know about that. The fiction programming is still swimming nervously in the bottom scales.

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

Adios

Soni