Sunday, September 7, 2003		Television

Revenge of the sisters

Ehsaas: Kahani Ek Ghar Ki: Soapy affair.

EVER since Ekta Kapoor started the trend, there’s a feeling among serial makers that the safest bet on TV is a family soap with a woman protagonist. Ehsaas: Kahani Ek Ghar Ki on Doordarshan, Monday to Friday at 1.30 pm, cashes in on this viewer preference.

The family saga is the story of Parvati and her two sisters whose father has died in a mysterious accident after being cheated by his business partner. The three sisters are now on a mission to destroy the man they think is responsible for their father’s death.

Amidst the drama of hate and vendetta, there is a love triangle when Parvati and one of her sisters discover they love the same man.

Directed by Raman Kumar, with his favourite cast that includes stars like Kiran Kumar, Avtaar Gill, Mohan Bhandari, Navneet Nishaan and Amita Nangiya, Ehsaas has all the kitsch of an afternoon soap. What sets it apart is the musical score by Jagjit and Chitra Singh — which is sweet melody for viewers.

Return of the Haryanvi Jat

That Pooja Bhatt has a special fascination for Channel (V) veejays is now a well-established fact. Her break up with Ranvir Shorey is a thing of the past. Now there is another former veejay in her life — Muneer Makhija, whom she married in Goa recently.

Muneer Makhija may not mean much but if you rewind back to 1998, the name ‘Udham Singh’ would surely ring a bell. The loud and assertive Haryanavi Jat who set urban pulses racing with his rural accent complete with dhoti, lathi and buffalo.

The veejay vibed so well with the disco-hopping crowd that an IMRB survey declared him the most popular act on TV. Whether hosting his show, acting in ads of Britannia Checkers or Limca or even while dancing to his own tunes in his album Jat In the Mix, Udham’s appeal was different from other veejays who talked in heavily accented English.

Now, on hindsight, he says if he hadn’t been a veejay he would have become a carpenter, mechanic, dhaba owner...anything under the sun. Or as Udham would say: "Bhayo, laife main aage badhana hai to 82 chahiya..." (If you want to succeed in life you need attitude!). A hard-to-put-down success secret considering he now has Pooja Bhatt as his wife!

A mega budget of Rs 60 crore, three directors, a band of musicians, including Anu Malik and Anand Raj Anand, locales like Dubai and New Zealand, a long list of actors and big screen diva Karisma Kapoor have all gone into the making of Karisma-The Miracle of destiny, which Sahara Manoranjan is hoping will do the miracle for it.

"Now there is no stopping us and we are ready with over 100 episodes," says the relieved creative director Akashdeep referring to the plagiarism controversy set at rest by the courts. The mood in the unit is upbeat and Karishma will lead the charge of other big-ticket items that Sahara is planning to launch later in the year.

The most excited is the leading lady Karishma. "I said yes instantly as I had no reservations about doing television. The serial has given me a chance to do something that I have never done before — play a double role and do a character from 16 to 70 years. Everything has happened to me at the right time.

Indeed it has. This is double blessing time — the serial and her wedding plans with Delhi businessman Sanjay Kapur. And maybe later a chance to work with Amitabh Bachchan for one of the biggest ever blockbuster soaps of the small screen for (who else) Sahara.

Most TV viewers have had fleeting glimpses of her on the small screen in serials like Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai, Suhana Safar, Gaatha and Banegi Apni Baat. And there have been ad clips for products like Rexona, Kingfisher and Clean & Clear.

Now 20-year-old Mausami is moving into a higher gear. She’s making her big screen debut in sister Shona Urvashi’s directorial venture, Chupke Se opposite Zulfikar Sayed. "I play a bubbly, fun-loving girl who is always at the wrong place at the right time," says a thrilled Mausami.

And even before her debut she already has an impressive line-up of films. She plays the lead in director Mahesh Manjrekar’s Padam Shree Laloo Prasad Yadav, a mentally depressed woman, in 1:16 and the lead in Vishal Bhardwaj’s keenly awaited Miya Maqbool opposite Irfan Khan.

Says she, "Luckily, I haven’t had to struggle. The transition from TV to films has been very smooth. And I’am all fired up about my new projects." Hope the viewers share her sentiments after seeing her performances.

Just six months into its India launch, the 24-hour Reality TV is already claiming to have entered 15 million Indian households and is now going into an aggressive expansion mode.

"We plan to start road shows in a phased manner in all the four metros to promote our shows and get closer to Indian viewers," says a spokesperson. The channel that combines real-life dramas with unrehearsed footage is going for fresh programming that includes many new series.

In Code Red viewers take a front-seat ride to emergency sites, including raging fires, car crashes and train accidents. Robotica is another part-combat, part-fun series that introduces passionate techno-junkies who create robotic warriors.

When Chefs Attack blows the kitchen door wide open with some stomach-turning footage of restaurants all over the world. You may never eat out again after watching this series. Criminal Minds could pass off as a thriller were it not for real-life cases.

The most interesting is Cheaters in which suspicious spouses ask the Reality TV team to verify if their partner is having an affair. Secret cameras record all the suspects activities and share their findings with the client who is given the opportunity to confront the suspect on the show. Cloud there be anything more real than that!

What makes a country beautiful? Is it buildings, highways, skyscrapers and modern infrastructure? Yes, to an extent it is. But what makes it really picturesque are its heritage, culture and architecture.

Ancient monuments, sculptures and paintings, inscriptions and cave dwellings — great architectural works that have outstanding value from the point of view of history, art, culture and science. These all can be collectively put together under one name — Heritage.

In an attempt to track the present scenario of the global heritage BBC World comes up with Heritage, Fridays at 3 p.m, a series documenting the disappearing world from Angkor Whatt to Stonehenge, to vanishing cultures and peoples.

In this 13-programme series the sites are drawn from 730 world heritage monuments, which are unique and face a variety of threats such as war, tourism, population pressure, changing climate and development.

This is an attempt to seek what place is there in our fast changing lives for these traditional expressions of culture and civilisation. A fascinating series on some of the most splendid buildings of the world many of which are facing extinction.

— Mukesh Khosla