Married to the box

So what’s new? Television serials specialise in four-letter words: love, like, hate, rape kill. The new shows are no different though some do try to spellthings out a little more. Were you to sit back and take the long view, a brief history of love and marriage and even remarriage will unfold before your eyes. For example: in Raahein (not all that new), our heroine, is an outstanding college student who discovers that the man she’s in love with, loves her but loves his disapproving mother too (oh, these Indian men!). So they swallow their mutual passion, alongwith their spit. Shefali Chhaya, that wonderful actress, is brilliantly miscast: brilliantly, because she possesses the histrionic talent to gulp at the appropriate moments; miscast because she looks too mature for the role of a 22-year old (or thereabouts) girl pining for a limp wimp.

With Sparsh (Sony) and Aur Phir Ek Din (STAR Plus), we have moved forward to the phase of love leading to marriage, marriage ending up in divorce. And the promise of love after marriage. In Sparsh we will experience lateral living: the past, present and the future will be played out simultaneously. At the moment, MaheshThakur has packed his bags and left Divya Seth. Marriage kaput. Over there Mrinalini Kulkarni has engaged to marry a man of her parents’ choice. In Ravi Rai’s work (Sailaab, Thoda Hai…) the pace is unhurried; it permits the viewer time to stop and think about what the characters say, crucial since there’s considerable (albeit agonised) thoughtfulness in what’s being said (for a TV serial). And already, there are the contours of compelling performance from Seth as the wife who wants out.

Aur Phir Ek Din is somewhat similarly placed: except that now there are little children involved. Soni Razdan is the widowed mother of a little girl who must learn to cope without a man by her side. Kiran Kumar is a married father of a little boy who is coping with the fact that his wife seldom wants to be by his or the boy’s side. Another one for the divorce courts. We’ve been told that the serial is inspired by the film One Fine Day, starring Michelle Pfieffer and George Clooney as love-crossed single parents. AurPhir… hasn’t got its humour. But Razdan plays the widow as a frazzled, disoriented person who is being robbed of her dignity but refuses to let go of the purse. There’s strength in the manner she rebukes a table of three men who humiliate her at an interview; there’s vulnerabililty in her sagging against her Maruti 800 after the interview.

The next step or stop, is Aashiqui (Zee), or may be it is hanging in between. Arun Govil and Farida Jalal are a separated couple with teenage children. He’s a reformed alcoholic but his family didn’t know about it. Meanwhile, he is seeing “another woman” who has given him solace in his time of need and he’s given her a saree for services rendered. Now it’s his birthday and he’s got dinner invitations from both women. Watch on.Saans and Hasratein, Thoda Hai…, to name just three other serials, have already dealt with similar subjects. Why even Amanat (Zee) is currently considering Santosh’s remarriage. Thematically, nothing new. We have to see whether or not thetreatment and the resolutions are.

These are just a few of the most recent crop of shows on the air. There are more: Hera Pheri, (STAR Plus), the sitcom, with Shekhar Suman, Rakhi Vijan, Asrani, Bhavana Balsaver was touted as so funny you’d stitch your stomach screaming with laughter. After several episodes, all you want to stitch is their mouths, so they remain sealed for ever. There’s Tulsi whose taken Aparajita place (DD1) in the woman’s agony column. But there’s a stay order on tears till next week.