Top 7 hit TV formulas-KkavyAnjali

Of late Balaji has been the most envied and successful soap churning factory in the country. Even though there are many pretenders to the throne, none has been successful in dethroning the king till now! We want to make things a little easy for the aspirants and decided to put together a common recipe using some very clichd, trusted formulas that go into the making of a Balaji soap.

The K-Title: This is the first and the foremost requirement of making a successful Balaji soap. Never mind if your title runs into several hundred letters but it has to start with K. It's also important to register the title before anyone else (read Ekta Kapoor, Karan Johar, Rakesh Roshan etc) steals your lucky name.

Docile bahu: Once the title is finalised, pick up a homely girl from the market. Never mind if she can't act, because she doesn't need to. All she needs to do is shed gallons of tears in every second scene. After all, she has to play a docile woman who takes all the possible injustices in the world.

Spineless son: Once you have a heroine in place, you also need to get a male counterpart who would be ready to suspect her all the time and will believe everyone in the world but his heroine. He will be involved in making your female lead's life miserable by his untimely death or having an extra marital affair.

The Vicious vamp: If there is a hero and a heroine, a vamp is a must. Otherwise how would the scheming, plotting and planning be complete! One, who is ready to apply loud makeup on her face, coloured lenses, artificial eyelashes, stylized bindis, dark kohl and eyeliner, weird hairdos, dark red lipstick etc would be the perfect choice. She doesn't even need to act, but must possess a unique style of dialogue delivery and a mind sharper-than-Einstein is a must. .

Weirdo villain: Next in the list of essential ingredients for a daily soap is a very strange looking male villain who would play the right hand to your always-scheming vamp. Sporting the strangest haircuts and worst dressing styles which makes him look more like a cartoon character he would always be free to carry out any of the evil plans of the vamps.

Intrepid writer: Once your key players are in place, you also need someone to engage their time. That's where your script writer comes in action. He would be the one, who would think of almost impossible (mostly unrealistic) twists-n-turns in your story. He would also be responsible for killing the characters and also bringing them back to life whenever he gets bored.

Remarriages, love triangles and illegitimate children: These are the most important aspects of a serial making without which, the show would never be complete. Normal love triangles will have three to four persons pursuing a single lead actor. Surprisingly, polygamy can be safely practiced, which gives the required masala (never mind the law of the land). Re-marriages can happen in the family too, like a woman divorcing her husband and later remarrying his younger brother and staying in the same house etc.

Or strangely, your heroine can keep getting married and separating from her number of love interests the umpteenth number of times. And if there are remarriages, can illegitimate children be far behind? Such children can remain scattered across the globe for years. But, at a crucial juncture, they may make a comeback.

Returning from the dead: This is one formula which seems to hit a chord every time. Sometimes the person presumed dead undergoes a plastic surgery and comes back in a totally different persona!