Anupamaa: The Rare Hindi GEC Success Story

By Shailesh Kapoor

Amid all that’s wrong with the Hindi GEC category (and readers to this column will know that I have a long list), there is an occasional spark that brings some joy. After being the most-loved Hindi GEC character on Ormax Characters India Loves for 39 consecutive months (from July 2018), Jethalal from Sony Sab’s Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah passed on the top rank to Anupama, the titular character from Star Plus’ 2020 launch.

Anupama, an adaptation of the Bangla show Sreemoyee on the same network, has been a runaway hit, achieving the unthinkable 4% rating mark in urban Hindi-speaking markets in recent months. In a category where a 2% rating is now considered an achievement (though Netflix’s Dhamaka tells you that you lose your job as a new anchor at 70% ratings, which is available live!), Anupama’s numbers have been exceptional. An average Anupama episode doesn’t rate much less than an IPL game, for example. And while IPL airs only 45 days a year, the show has managed to sustain this for several months, six days a week.

With its multitude of well-etched characters, Anupama is one of the few well-written Hindi GEC shows currently on air. The storytelling is in broad strokes, but the characters and the conflicts are consistently engaging, and there’s enough entertainment on offer too in what is essentially a high-voltage drama of late.

The casting and the performances are a notch above the operating level of the Hindi GEC category too. And the lead actress Rupali Ganguly has made the character very much her own, layering the portrayal with mannerisms that can possibly not be written on paper. It’s easy to guess that the show’s creative development process has managed to break away from the daily soap assembly line rut.

If an OTT show would have even been half as good as Anupama, the press and the internet would have gone ballistic singing its praises. But GEC content earns no such respect in recent years. Not that the channels, including Star Plus, have anyone else to blame but themselves. They continue to diss their own category on air, an inexplicable thing to do. “Don’t act like a daily soap mother-in-law” and “There’s always a daily soap running in your house” are just two examples of dialogues (translated from Hindi) that you will hear in some of the top HGEC shows, including Anupama. When a category decides it can write a joke on itself, and the joke does not even come across as a joke but is taken in all seriousness by the audience, you know there’s a lot wrong at so many levels.

Nevertheless, Anupama deserves even more love. It’s that rare sensible show that can potentially change some people’s perception about Hindi serials, only if it reached them. But the more important question is: Can there be more like it, or is Anupama a one-off? If there’s enough talent in the Hindi fiction television industry to pull off a show as interesting as Anupama, why are other shows so drab in comparison?

I feel the only reason anupama has tasted such success is that it is in a way the saas-bahu/ superwoman/ superbahu oriented story the trp audience (mainly consisting of women or stay at home mothers/wives) have become conditioned to watching on itv, except it's done in a more realistic manner compared to other itv shows that do saas bahu and female-centric family dramas.

By this I mean that other such itv serials have always featured much more younger actresses as the traditional and perfect bahu/wife, but this show has casted a more age-appropriate actress to play the role of the sacrificing and perfect home-maker, making this overdone concept more relatable to the trp audience who probably find an older actress in this type of role more relatable than significantly younger actresses who don't even look like the kind of woman that would be stay at home wives and bahus who take a verbal-beating from their in-laws with complete subservience.

Also those younger actresses all look way too model-esque and dressed up for trp audience to relate to them. I feel rupali as anupama attracts more audience sympathy for that reason too.

Then theres the fact that the show actually presents family drama without being too unrealistic or too negative (no ott plotting to character assassinate a woman, no drugging, no murder attempts etc). In short the weird conspiracies that take place in other itv shows do not happen here, making the show more palatable and realistic to viewers who are fed up of ITV regurgitating the same exact content with ridiculous conspiracies against a female protagonist or to separate a couple.

Will another anupama-esque show come about and be a success? Well if channels and producers get the brains to realise that these portrayals of doormat, perfect wives/ bahus just look ridiculous when played by young and modern looking actresses, and try and portray family drama in a more realistic way then maybe there maybe much better family dramas like anupama on itv.

Because it focus on real. Family issue drama. It choose very sensitive and real issue that house wive hard work care love is ignore just because she is not earning and not much qualified and husband are always givence top priority because they are earner of house

Because I have seen in real life agar koi women job nahin karti hai to log use bolte hai ki tum job nahin karti ho to ghar mein kya karti ho. Tumhare paas ghar mein kaam hi kya hai

So by showig such issue makers show that house wives also has lot of contribution in making house they too. Deserve love and respect

It is good that writer ka is senstive issue pe dhyan gaya aur uske baare mein TV pe show kiya

And more over har ek character in anupama se almost relate kar sakte hain if not 100 percent

Because it choose senstive issue more over it try to show real Fight real issue hat is why show love by most of audience