gujjus to the fore again

Come November 25 and Sony's Batliwala's House No 43 has a new family moving into the famous address. A set of orthodox but flashy Gujaratis, the Kudkudiyas are all set to tickle your funny bone. Though the format of the show remains the same, the team of actors and set-up is completely new. Screen catches up with the producer and the brain behind this wacky show... The quirky Parsis who inhabited House No 43 for almost one year are vacating the place to make way for a set of orthodox but flashy Gujaratis. Called The kudkudiya, the new family comprises Mansukhlal Trivedi, his wife Dayaben, son Hitesh and daughter Urmilaben. Dilip Joshi, Dimple Ghosh, Siddhartha and Nimisha Vakharia, all seasoned TV and theatre actors have been roped in to play the funny foursome. In keeping with the Gujaratis flair for business, the house will now also include a farsan shop, a Gujju speciality. Celebrities coming onto the show will be treated to this tasty mix before the host tries to dig out exciting masala from them. Talking about the change, JD Majethia, producer, Hats Off Production says, "From now on, we will be changing the family every few months. A Maharastrian, Punjabi or a South Indian family will be taking over the house in turns, though we have not decided on the tenure." Needless to mention, that completely depends on how well the family is received by the audience. The Batliwalas, despite their eccentricity and sense of humour, failed to weave their magic on the viewers. There was even talk of the host Bhaktiar being replaced in a bid to rev the show. At that time, Majethia had squashed the rumours and defended the show, saying that Indian sensibilities restricted them from taking up issues freely discussed on the original hit show Kumars At 42. Now by giving it a Gujarati set-up, the current flavour of television, the channel is hoping to capture lost ground. To begin with, the new tongue-twisting name does have a funny feel to it. Says Majethia, "Among Gujaratis, you will find a lot of surnames like Kathoria and Kotadia. Also when one jabbers incessantly, one tends to say kitna kudkud karta hai. Taking the two things together, I hit upon kudkudiya." The Kudkudiyas will be radically different from their predecessors, the Batliwalas. Says Aatish Kapadia, writer and producer, "Unlike the Batliwalas who were emancipated, the Kudkudiyas will be a conservative lot who look down on a girl keeping late hours or a boy talking to someone from the opposite sex. They are from a rural background and their set of beliefs are different from the city-bred. The mother wears old kanjeevaram sarees and always covers her head with her pallu." Kudkudiyas are shown to be a bunch of country bumpkins who find themselves in the city one fine day. They undergo a culture shock and this is reflected in their simple but unintentionally funny questions to the celebrities. The first celebrity to visit the Kudkudiyas will be the south superstar Madhavan.

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So far, all the shows from Hats Off have revolved around a Gujarati family, be it Ek Mahal Ho Sapnon Ka, Khichdi, Saarabhai Vs Saarabhai or Baa Bahoo Aur Baby. "Being a Gujarati myself, I am comfortable with the mileu," points out Aatish who has delved into various facets of his community through the serials. While Ek Mahal ... depicted the lives of urban upperclass Gujaratis, Saarabhai ... is about the elite South Bombay Gujarati and Baa ...is the quintessential joint Gujarati family. Instant Khichdi, the wacky comedy had a Gujarati setting and Aatish insists that characters like Hansa, Praful and Jayashree shown in the serial exist in real life. As do the characters of Thekudkudiya.Aatish states that he has seen narrow-minded conservative Gujaratis whose values are in complete contrast to those held by a modern, urbane Gujaratis which will be the take-off point for the show. He is making sure that he rectifies all the mistakes he and his team made with the Batliwallas. He feels that the liberal outlook of the Parsi family went against the show. "In the original Kumars At 42, the family is shown to be rambunctious. They are misfits. But in the case of Batliwalas, apart from being Parsis, they did not really stand out. Though the son was shown to be a nincompoop, he had a modern approach, which probably didn't work," he reflects. He takes the blame for not supporting the actors with a good script. "I thought writing a chat show is simpler than scripting soaps and I took it a little easy," he confesses adding, "I have realised that a chatshow of this nature needs a lot of improvisation which I am concentrating on this time around." No wonder, he is confident The kudkudiya will be a crowd-puller. Hats Off has also readied a show for Star One which according to Aatish will introduce a new genre. Unwilling to divulge any more details, the writer says that the show has temporarily been put on hold because the team is focussing its synergies on Baa Bahoo Aur Baby. "Baa ... is aired on weekends which is a tough slot. One cricket match, one awards nite and the viewership goes for a toss. There is no loyalty to a weekend soap," laments Majethia. Recently, Baa... had filmstars Fardeen Khan, Zayed Khan, Ayesha Takia, Soha Ali Khan, Sharman Joshi and Esha Deol playing themselves as part of a tie-up with the film Shaadi No.1. To further pep up the proceedings in the show, the producers are roping in fresh faces. A new Maharashtrian servant Rajja played by Siddharth, a Marathi film actor, is being introduced shortly. Rajja will be shown to have worked as maushi in lavani, a popular Marathi dance form. Since the lavani troupe he was working in becomes defunct, Rajja takes up a job as a servant in Baa's household. While the womenfolk welcome him as he relieves them off all their chores, the men, specially Arvind, Baa's elder son is unhappy because he hates anyone who is connected with song and dance. The producers are also working on a few more characters and tracks which will have 'high emotional quotient'. Unlike Saarabhai ... and Khichdi which have become benchmarks as far as comedies go, Baa ... pitched as a 'slice of life' serial hasn't exactly been able to strike an emotional chord with the viewer. "Saarabhai ... and Khichdi caught on after five months, Baa ... is only three months old. Unlike shows that fizzle out after the initial boom, ours grow gradually like slow poison," explains Aatish. He points out that Saarabhai ... is popular in the metros while Baa ... which is mass-oriented, has caught on in the interiors. But at the recently Indian Television Academy awards, it was Saarabhai ... that walked away with five awards including best comic series, actor, actress, dialogue, and director. Overjoyed, Majethia beams, "It's after many years that any show is getting awards in the top five categories." It's a different matter that their other equally popular show Instant Khichdi didn't find a single nomination on the same platform. Though miffed, Majethia contends that Instant Khichdi is a mad comedy while Saarabhai ... has a certain finesse to it. Soon, the duo, Aatish and Majethia are planning to venture into filmmaking. They will be co-directing and co-producing a film with UTV, the screenplay of which has been penned by Aatish. This award-winning writer has, to his credit, block-busters like Waqt - Race Against Time and Aankhen. The casting of the film, which will go on the floors next February, is yet to be finalised. In the meantime, Hats Off is aiming at luring the viewers into House No.43 ... with apdo Gujjus, The kudkudiya