The uttaran soapmobile: test drive and review

Soaps doesn't get any more basic or cheap than this ' it's basically a soap box on wheels. This is the poor man's family soap, with not much in the way of comfort, refinement or finesse, but plenty of utility and practicality for a very low rated TRP. Color's been trying to make it as serial-like as possible.

The uttaran is nearly as old as the colors channel; in fact, it's one of the oldest soapmobiles in colors stable and it shows. The veecha last received a face-lift in 2009 with the chopper chopped off masala added, and has stayed much the same since.
It's a thaka hua dabba through and through, from its boring faces to its flat, easy-to-make up sleepy characters, and from its old script, mounted under the creative team's uncreative head, to the idiot box drive set-up, pale directors and crude scenes at the show.
It uses two plus two=four legged tired old rusty wheels, with hawai chappals and fake make ups all round. There's no pretence of sound-deadening apparatus or any real effort towards making it serial like.

Build quality is really flimsy, with tissue-thin sheet metal; with this and the fact that there's only a few inches of face and face between them and a head-on collision, safety is a real issue.
The script, too, is outdated masala-like, resembling a hastily modified commercial show ' which it actually is. It is decidedly Spartan, with very few creature comforts, and absolutely basic stories and characters. The driving position is camel-like, the viewer sitting on top of the hump, the TV at a flat, uncomfortable angle, his feet on awkwardly positioned sofa.
One sits facing a bare-bones serial, with rudimentary script, poor characters and uncomfortable storyline.

Getting in and out through the serial is easy, but once inside, you have to contend with flat, shapeless faces, countless villains and comedians pretending to be villians and vice versa and plenty of vibrations. There's no forwarding of the kahaani, and the sliding characters are a pain to use. The dialogues are also the old static type, a safety concern.

The time slot is fairly large, considering the soapmobile's size, but the angle of the costumes means veer leans against ichcha; open it up and everything tumbles out. This space is best used for a fake romantic masala track.

The soapmobile uses the same engine as the old tired dadimaa's mouse powered, turned by 90 degrees to fit longitudinally, and drives the tapasya's head instead of ichcha. This engine has rami rakhi and the same two-villians-per-character head.
It also uses the same infinite-speed gearbox as its dadimaa cousin, but with different ratios, to offer dialogue delivery instead of top-end performance, which is necessary in a crazy soap.
However, it feels woefully under-powered on the highway, especially with a full complement of passengers.
The breadbox-like aerodynamics don't help and the large frontal area severely limits time slots. In fact, any "mahaepisodes" you manage will be a bonus.

Refinement is a real problem: the engine is noisy and harsh, and the gearbox is rubbery, and the shift is not as smooth as you would find in a normal soap.

However, the good news ends there: the ride is really bouncy, the dadimaa's brainless character perception unsuitable for travel in the hinterland, where it will spend most of its time, and the chemistry has no feel, and is more vague than a politician asked to tell the truth.
It's a pain on the highway, top-heavy, with lots of body roll and poor twists ' it takes a brave man to watch this serial quickly on the highway with a in built DTH connection. High-speed stability is skateboard-like, and the signal is susceptible to crosswinds.

There's only a certain type of viewer who buys an uttaran branded soapmoble someone who has no aspirations, and just wants cheap, impractical timepass viewership.