'Kkusum' to see a new Mahi?

Is marriage a joke?

The soap factory has made it one, despite all the blah blah about family values. Check out these more than much-married people

Reena Thapar Kapoor

From Balaji to Sony to Zee, our serial makers boast about propagating good old Indian ethics, family values and social norms through their soaps. But soon, the need for masala and drama overtakes the good intentions of promoting sanskaar and adarsh to the lay man.
Why else do they show their protagonists getting married again and again, and yet again? Why not send them for marriage counselling instead? Check out how some of the current favourites on television have been jumping in and out of marriages - and making light of a serious social institution.
This one can certainly be called 'all in the family.': Aamna Sharif
Kahin to Hoga's Kashish (Aamna Shariff): This pretty lass first broke off her engagement with Sujal Garewal ( who she had been seeing) because of differences and got married to his cousin Piyush Raheja. After the latter's death, she married Sujal and now, after Sujal's death, she is all set to tie the knot yet again with his step-brother Swayam who fancies her.
This is what we call 'true love: Cezanne Khan
Kasautii's Anurag Basu: For starters, he impregnated his first love Prerna and dumped her to get married to Komolika. Later he dumped her and married Prerna. Then the two divorced each other over various misunderstandings and he got hitched to wife number three, Apo*na.However, Currently it is Prerna and Anurag who are living together as a 'couple'.
Ummm...oh…never mind!: Anuj Saxena
Kkusum's Abhay Kapoor (Anuj Saxena): His first wife Kkusum and he had a daughter. Then Abhay got involved with Isha. But the story moved on and he married Tashu. He had a son from her. Then came Mahi, the third (or is it fourth) wife. He had a daughter from her as well. And in between all this, he kept remarrying and divorcing his first wife Kkusum( at least five times).
Abhi is seriously taking the 'age no bar' syndrome very seriously: Varun Badola
Astitva's Abhimanyu Saxena (Varun Badola): The main protagonist of the show Abhi gets married to Dr. Simran first. He then marries his assistant Kiran, who eventually dumps him. The third bride is his colleague Neha who he marries because of first wife Simran's insistence. Then Neha dies. And now, Abhi and Simran have remarried.
A true momma's boy, what?: Sumeet Sachdev
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi's Gautam Virani (Sumeet Sachdev): He loved Teesha but married Ganga because his mother wanted him to. On learning the truth about Ganga, momma got the darling divorced from his wife and married to sweetheart Teesha. Then Teesha died in a car accident. So now, the boy's got third time lucky with his brother's girlfriend Damini.

At the movies...

Small screen,big egos

Subhash K Jha

Here's one that you won't get to hear on KBC. What's the biggest laugh- line in showbiz – after, of course "We're just good friends?"
"I prefer doing TV to movies." What a lie! As far as I know there's only one actor whose chosen medium of __expression is television …and that's Simi Garewal. Far ahead of her times, she gave up movies at a time when roles for 40-plus actresses had begun to dry up.
Instead of hovering around playing one of her co-star's moms (she was Manoj Kumar's leading lady in Do Badan , and would've looked nothing short of preposterous if she was his mama in, say, Doped Badan), Simi chose to jump mediums, and oh-so-gracefully.
She was our first – and to this day, the finest – TV anchor, on Doordarshan's It's A Woman's World. Those were the conservative 70s. The show was yanked off the air when Mahesh Bhatt said he would 'hack' his wife if she had an extra-marital affair.
Simi patented and perfected the art of hosting a celeb chat-show in the mythic Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. It's said, you aren't really a star until Simi invites you on her show.
Today, just when another season of Rendezvous is around the corner, Simi is on the verge of making a very important comeback to films with a role specially written for her. But will she abandon the small screen?
Simi reiterates, "Rendezvous will remain my first love." Such loyalty on the home medium is almost unheard of. The reason Indian television hasn't evolved and developed its own identity is because it's suffused with big-screen rejects and hopefuls who use television as a brothel. Slip in and slip out at your convenience.
Remember Ronit Roy? He once made his big-screen debut in a film called Jaan Tere Naam. Having made no headway, Ronit did a turn-around into oblivion…until Ekta Kapoor rescued him from anonymity.
If you don't watch Ekta Kapoor's ceaseless saas-bahu yarns you wouldn't recognise Roy as the guy at the centre of Tulsi's attention-spin.
Now producers are fighting over rights to Ronit's presence. The makers of Sarrkarr (the title is a pain in the 'r's) are apparently going to court to keep the portable star in their soap. Good for Ronit.
But should he - and by extension any other TV star - take his 30 minutes of prime-time fame so seriously?
My first and hopefully last, brush with Mr Roy happened recently when I messaged him saying I'd like to speak to him. 'Regarding what?' was the terse response…and then I was told I had offended Mr Roy by writing something in the past.
Ahem… I don't recall writing about Mr Roy at all. I know quite a few stars closely. The biggest two of showbiz, Lata Mangeshkar and Amitabh Bachchan, know what it is to preserve a core of humility and grace in their personality, even after conquering every peak of success.
I suggest a crash course from the Big 2 for these crass crowds of instant stars. They must learn to take success, especially of the ephemeral kind, with a pinch of salt.
I find a lot of TV stars take themselves too seriously. Many of them are convinced they've opted to be on television rather than in cinema, and that their chosen medium would collapse if they opted out of the soaps that have made them famous.
Mistake…. big mistake. People know Roy as Mr Bajaj, the character he plays in Ekta's soap. TV creates a deadly illusion of success. Once the illusion passes, you're dead. Remember Anita Kanwar as Lajjo in Buniyaad, Navneet Nishan as Tara and Neena Gupta as the spurned wife in Saans? Viewers washed their hands off them with the soap.
Correct me if I'm wrong. But nowadays, I feel TV stars have far larger egos than their large-screen counterparts.
This could've something to do with their rather embarrassing status as cinema rejects and years of being pushed around in the corridors of movie producers' offices, made to wait by star secretaries, shooed away by the end of the day, told to come back the next day…then the next….and so on and so filth.
Yes, I understand why TV stars are so bitter…but so self-important? Heavens! Their sense of self-worth far exceeds the size of their talent and the screen on which it is exercised.