Thriller with a twist in the tale

THE title of the telefilm may conjure up images of a happy-go-lucky Dev Anand singing to Tanuja. Yeh Dil Na Hota Bechara — Though the lead character here too is Tanuja, Yeh Dil Na Hota Bechara on Star Plus is no throwback to the seventies’ thriller Jewel Thief.

But a thriller it is with a twist in the tail. It’s about Tanuja, a social worker, who has an altercation with industrialist Vijay for sacking Vyjanthi, an employee in his company.

Things take a strange turn when the two are witness to Vyjanthi’s murder. The next morning Tanuja is threatened by a mysterious caller. She begins suspecting that the investigating police inspector has mastermined the operation. There in a scuffle between the two and Tanuja accidentally kills the cop.

Now she starts being blackmailed by the mysterious caller. He has photographs of her scuffle with the cop leading to his death. She decides to pay the blackmailer and she nearly faints with shock when she realises who the tormentor is.

A racy thriller, which will keep you on the edge of your seat. Keep your Saturday evenings free.

Wonderland

Want a trip to fantasy land? Enter the portals of Mayavi Nagri on Doordarshan every Saturday and meet magicians, ghosts, devils, lords, fairies, priests and know-all pundits.

The serial is set in a huge kingdom called ‘Mayanagri which is the land of wonders. Every citizen here has a working knowledge of tantra-mantra or maya (magic).

Conceptualised by Ekta Kapoor, Mayavi Nagri has an impressive star cast with Gajendra Chauhan, Asha Lata and Akhilendra Mishra in the lead roles providing a special treat for viewers.

Is destiny supreme?

Does man make his own destiny or is everything in life predetermined by a hidden power?

Can anyone change the lines on one’s palm? This constant conflict between fate and human effort provides the backdrop to the family serial Lakeerin on Zee TVevery Tuesday at 2 p.m.

The serial is about a family headed by Shivnarayan Agarwal fondly called Kakoji by his children and grand children. Having lost his wife, Kakoji, a very big industrialist of Calcutta, has taken retirement from his work and wishes to take interest in his family affairs.

Was his retirement — and what happens after that — predetermined or was it a result of his own decision? Find out for yourself in this mid-day serial.

Toon Halloween special

Get ready to shake, shiver and laugh your guts out as Halloween gets underway at Cartoon Network. There’s a witch’s brew of spine-chilling, nerve-jangling, funny bone-rattling cartoons that’ll make this Halloween creepier than ever before!

Spend Halloween with Scooby Doo whose holiday fun is wrecked by a headless ghost. Then there’s Bugs Bunny who tricks and treats a neighbourhood witch. And the Mask who is terrorised by the Prince of Shadowland. Or even Casper the friendly ghost who acts like a human trying to spook people.

But kids can rest assured there aren’t any real ghosts and ghouls at Cartoon Network — only hours of great fun, full of thrills for the whole family on October 31 between 8.30 and 12.30.

Universal understanding

Where did man come from? How did the universe begin? And how will it end? Today, scientists are closer than ever to answering the questions about the universe and man’s place in it.

BBC’s Seeing Is Believing begins a spectacular journey through cosmology, tracing the history of astronomical theories and technology from the ancient Greeks through Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hubble.

Through the course of the programme, perception about the earth shifts from Ptolemy’s centre of the universe to what Professor Hawking describes as an orbit around an average sized sun — just one of millions of stars in the galaxy.

During the series, which uses sophisticated computer graphics to illustrate the evolution of the cosmos and all the matter in it as it has never been seen before, Prof Hawking and other leading cosmologists shed new light on subjects like black holes, time travel and the search for the ultimate theory of the universe.

Starting November 6 this is a stunning programme which explains in a layman’s language the complexities of space and the universe in the words of the world’s greatest ever cosmologist, Prof Hawkings, who is a paraplegic and bound to wheelchair yet has become the most noted scientist after Einsteen.

— Mukesh Khosla