Down with K serials
Just following up on the ‘domesticated’ comment Amitabh Bachchan made…well not so recently. Reminds me of the K serials! Those dreaded (rather dreadful), awful, disgusting, diatribes against the liberation of women and everything that comes with it. I sometimes wonder if Ekta Kapoor actually believes in whatever she makes. I hope not for if she does then hells nigh! Women of the world unite! Against this nauseating assault on womanhood, modernity, and the progression of thought that does not seem to end and trust me there’s more muck coming from the K stable.
Its good, in these days of the Parvatis and the Tulsis to rewind and go back to the era of Humlog and Buniyad, not to forget the delightfully hilarious Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and of course Mr Yogi, a unique celebration of the common man and his uncommon dreams.
All we get to watch today are painfully slow and agonizing stories (or should I say profiles?) of ultra-rich, incredulous, pathetic families where women are made to dress in ruddy chiffons and lounge around the house indulging in the worst kinds of familial intrigues. The men have no jobs (or so it seems). Oh yeah! They happen to be business tycoons and own plush mahogany offices…but rarely seem to go to work. Tycoons too need to work, don’t they?
I am reminded of Shridhar Kshirsagar’s Khandaan, broadcast on good old Doordarshan some twenty years back. A gripping story of two feuding business families, skillfully crafted. Just that my father did not allow me to watch it (said I was too young for a programme like that, etc). However, I vaguely remember Shekhar Kapur and Kitu Gidwani in pivotal roles. Later, I happened to read some commentaries on the serial. Mahesh Bhatt’s Swabhimaan too succeeded in holding my interest for a while but as in all things written by Shobha De, the serial too went the sex-and-sleaze way.
They no longer make the Byomkesh Bakshi’s and the Karamchand’s any more, do they? Even Tehkikat was not bad. Zee made an attempt some time back with Mohandas BA LLB, a nice amalgam of suspense and humour. The downfall has been rather dramatic what with Saat Phere..Saloni ka Safar being the highest TRP-earner on Zee (or is it across the board, I don’t know).
TV is rather unbearable to watch, what say? Thank God (or should I say Thank Oz), there’s PFC, for me to vent my spleen!
Tags: Television
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
pretty nostalgic Roshni
My all time fav doordarshan serial is (and will always be) Jaspal bhatti’s Flop show.
Always awaited it and coming from the north (delhi) and being the son of a government servant, the humor was pretty identifiable.
Does anybody have it on DVD ?????????
Karmachand is back on Sony but it is shite. i thought it would have been good but nah.
Lt. Columbo is much better anyday!
hey thx for remindnig me of mr. yogi.
damn it was my fav serial.
koi lauta de woh pyaare pyaare din!!!
Roshni
]
About time someone talked of this K nonsense,
I have seen hordes of women being stuck to TV ENJOYING these very intrigues,
these serials are BIG in SRI LANKA btw,
and my Sinhalese m-i-l was complaining that Sri Lankans are learning all the worst things from Indians through these serials,
first the Pakistanis blamed us for spoiling their culture with half clad women dancing shamelessly now this!!
[ though I must say some very nice people such as KK, Striker,Myself and others call ourselves K
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED BYOMKESH BAKSHI.
What about WAGLE KI DUNIYA? I remember spotting very briefly the original KKKKKiran in an episode of WKD and thinking ,
‘Man he is something!”
Did anyone spot SRK in WKD or am I right in assuming that I was the first to discover his ‘talents’:d
K3
ayeee….Thank god i do not get desi-channels here. but, tell you what…with my guilt-ridden face…i used to like Kyunki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi…about 7 years ago. Do not know about the current scenario…heheh
There used to a serial called Kashish with Sudesh Berry and Malvika tiwari. It was quite good…dealt with male-ego. Where is Sudesh and Malvika?
Mr.Yogi was awesome.
Can someone help me with this:
There used to be a serial with two older twin ladies called Indu and Bindu..it was hillarious as well
Aaaa bail Mujhe maar with Amol Palekar used to be aired on saturday afternoons….ayyila…OM going on a sweet memory drive…
Om,
Was the Indu-Bindu series called Idhar Udhar, by any chance? I think it had Ratna Pathak and Supriya Pathak as flatmates/sisters. I could be wrong.
@ greg..bang on bro… It was Idhar Udhar. Yes and it did have ratna Pathak and Supriya Pathak as sisters i guess if not twins….yeppie it was pretty funny serial
they really should’ve left Karmachand in the archives .. the comeback isn’t all that great.
nostalgic!!
Sangeeta “they really should
Desi Soaps are HUGE in Canada. HUGE. Its awful. I’m not joking when I say that far too many women out here are addicted to these soaps and, crap, are actually INFLUENCED by them!
I can’t begin to tell you guys how many drama queens have been created from girls who
On a side note, my family has Buniyaad on VHS and we still occasionally watch it. Mazhar Khan as “Lala Roshan Lal” was amazing.
Another great show was “Chhoti Badi Baatein”.
Even a few years back there was a show called “Aashirwad” with Govind Namdeo playing the strict patriarch of this upper-middle class family. Totally beats the horrible family sagas that infest Indian TV these days.
hey karthik, I probably missed mentioning Flop Show…one of my favourites too!
Bhatti’s just disappeared, hasn’t he?
Mr.Yogi too…Mohan Gokhale was awesome.
Kavita, I can empathise with you completely…
even though the same is not the case with my
family (none of us are hooked on to this rubbish) I know of enough families that are and
are wasting precious time watching this
crap. The Lankans too seemed to be
getting a taste of ‘Indian culture’ (isnt that
what these serials are supposed to be
peddling).
:((:((
guys, youtube had a few flop show episodes.. got to watch ‘em at work today.. was definitely a trip down memory lane when i saw the opening credits and song.. malgudi days was another personal favorite
How can you guys forget “Nukkad”!! Guru was my hero for many years!! That was my favorite serial!!
just remembered ‘Junnon’ another nice one probably from where the decline started…it probably was the ‘Father’(literally, as it was much more male dominated) of the current soap operas but was pretty enjoyable as far as i remember.
i really used to like some of the characters from it-Keshav Kalsi(Tom Alter), Nana Nagarkar(the guy who played Sai baba in a recent movie/serial), Puneet Isaar etc…
does anybody remember kile ka rahasya and mungeri laal kay haseen sapne…..
@MK…i like playing ‘khopdi’ at times..;)
Not to forget Pavan Malhotra in Nukkad
mr. aur mrs; wagle ki duniya; circus; fauji; dada dadi ki kahaniyan; shanti (the mother of all daily serials)
Udan Choo and Akbar -Birbal were ace as well.
i enjoy the saas bahu serials , they remind me of home ( i live in canada ).. they also are v. entertaining
I really want to see “Wagle Ki Duniya”. Does anyone have any old recordings on VHS? Is there any way to get this series. The Production Company which produced this series is “Durga Khote Productions”. I have tried to contact them many times but no luck.
Hey nobody remembered Shreeman Shreemati with Jatin Kanakia as ‘Kekuji’ and APS as Prema Shalini…that one was awesome..