Changing Over

With such examples and many others, television balances the status quo with the forces which appear to challenge it. Something of this conflict between continuity and change is present in most Hindi serials. This conflict lends the narrative a tension which might otherwise be absent. Take a look at a few of the most popular serials: Saans STAR Plus, Thoda Hai, Thodi ki Zaroorat Hai Sony and Hasratein Zee. Each deals with love and marriage not necessarily together and the passage of time. Characters confronted with change are asked to accept or break with convention.

In Saans, Priya is firm on being a one-man woman to her two-timingman Gautam. Their reconciliation hinges on his forsaking the other woman for his wife. Conventional wisdom says she should continue as the dutiful wife, ignore the affair and pretend to live in the past as though zilch had happened. But Priya doesn8217;t want to. Her sister-in-law understands: a woman cannot share her husband with another woman if she stills loves him, she tells Gautam, in last week8217;s episode. But having said as much, sister dear, steadfast in her loyalty to Priya, is now prepared to accept Manisha. She refers to Gautam8217;s affair with Manisha and subsequent marriage as a chhoti si bhool, as if adultery is a grammatical error. She is like everyone else in the serial with the exception of her own husband Suri-sahib, who wants Priya to accept Gautam with Manisha. The serial is see-sawing between the stubborness of Priya and Compromise.

Thoda Hai8230; has reached the point where the widowed8217; Kavita married to Vishal has decided to remarry. Conventional wisdom says once a widowalways a widow, that is 8212; she must live her present and her future in the past tense. But Thoda Hai8230; has spent over a year, painfully accompanying Vishal8217;s family through their journey of loss; the characters have been sifting through the sands of time and are now standing on a new shore. In that sense, we alongwith Kavita have been prepared for her resolution: to look beyond the past and the present to the future 8212; symbolised by prospective husband, Vikram and her little daughter. In her ambition to marry, she is supported by her father-in-law, the most liberated man on or off the screen. She is vehemently opposed by a red-faced brother-in-law and the mute reproof of a pale mother-in-law. Just as she stands on the brink of change, husband Vishal is rediscovered alive and well but amnesiac. Again, continuity and change hang in the balance.

And so to Hasratein. As in Saans we are confronted with one man and two women. Like Saans, the story has outlived its logic. But even now,it8217;s as if nothing has moved in the last three years: psychologically impaired KT is still dangling between his wife and Savi; his wife is still doing everything in her horrid way to prevent Savi meeting KT. Astonishingly too, every man who meets Savi loves her: her ex-husband, KT and now her new boss. When Seema Kapoor played Savi, she was an unconventional, out of the ordinary, offbeam stereotypical? other woman. Shefali Chhaya8217;s re-interpretation of Savi, wonderfully accomplished, has however, transformed her into a sober, conservative, pillar of society. Are these instances of when the more things change, the less they change?