Will Rakt Sambandh turn Imagines fortunes?

Adapted from a popular South show,Rakt Sambandh will begin airing from July

Adapted from a popular South show,Rakt Sambandh will begin airing from July
Turner Internationals Imagine TV has announced a new Hindi soap in association with UTV Tele Talkies that will go on air from July in a bid to boost its TRPs. The soap is called Rakt Sambandh and revolves around five sisters who are married into different cultures and income groups with their father overseeing them during any crisis. The show features actors such as Sayantani Ghosh,Gungun,Bhargavi Chirmule,Sonali Nikam,Mohan Agashe,Mazhar Syed,Sachin Shroff and Naman Shaw apart from veteran South actor Raja Kitty Krishnamurthi as the father Sadanand Savratkar.

Speaking at the launch of the show,Santosh Nair,COO of UTV Television said that the show was being conceptualised over the past six months. The USP of the show is that the dialogues will be told in a narrative as well as the normal sentences format. No other serial has such a format, he said adding that the Maharashtrian milieu of the show will appeal to audiences across various income groups. Every episode is compelling and filled with high voltage drama. That is what were banking upon to carry the show forward, Nair added.

The sensitivities have been tweaked from the Telugu language where the show titled Rakt Sambandham has completed 150 episodes and is considered to be a hit. The writer,too,has not been changed from the original version. Thus,Prashant Jadhav will be seen helming the Hindi version as well. Interestingly,Krishnamurthi,best remembered for his father roles in movies like Bombay and Phir Milenge,agreed to come on board only after Jadhav convinced him to do so. I have my own consultancy job so finding time is an issue, Krishnamurthi said adding that he has shifted base to Mumbai,his birth city,for the duration of the serials shoot.

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The soaps most well recognised couple is played by Sachin Shroff and Sayantani Ghosh who make a comeback after their outing in Naaginn. Ghosh added that the best part of the soap was that justice has been done to all the characters appearing in it. She also said that the actors were told that the show is a desi take on Desperate Housewives. Five different women,five families and their travails, she said,explaining the similarities between the two shows. However,when quizzed about the same,Nair denied that Rakt Sambandh had any similarities with the hit American series.

Nair also said that the production house was not trying to play it safe by launching an already popular soap. We were concentrating on non-fiction shows for the past two years with shows like Dance India Dance and Emotional Atyachaar. A lot of foreign production houses such as Freemantle had come into that space and we thought of driving that space too.

When asked why UTV TV had chosen Imagine to air the show,Nair said that the production houses first choice was always Imagine,despite the channels failure to sustain a long-term soap for a long duration. In a recent interview to Screen,Sameer Nair,CEO,Turner International Entertainment Networks Ltd had said that the channels biggest hurdle had been finding a soap that sustained viewer attention over a long period of time. While the production house and the channel hope to break the jinx with the new soap,whether Rakt Sambandh manages to hold viewers attention remains to be seen.

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