Young and listless

Next thing we know, Tulsi will be grandmother and the lead role will belong to the third generation with Gautam8217;s still-to-be conceived...

Next thing we know, Tulsi will be grandmother and the lead role will belong to the third generation with Gautam8217;s still-to-be conceived daughter it has to be a daughter taking over. Suddenly, we8217;re changing generations faster than a baby needs to change nappies. Suddenly, TV channels and producers are out to woo younger viewers with skittish girls in short kurtas and long-faced boys with mournful looks. If it8217;s Poonam in Shagun, it8217;s Shruti in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, and Kashish in the new Kahin To Hoga8212;young and pretty and pretty indistinguishable from one another. They wear identical kurtis, long black hair and vacuous expressions. They even live out the same stories. Take the opening episodes of Kahani8217;s 18 years shift forward and Kahin To Hoga. It8217;s Shruti8217;s birthday and she receives a Ganesh statue; it8217;s Kashish8217;s birthday too, but she receives nothing. If Shruti goes disco dancing on the sly, so does Kashish8217;s sly sister Molly shouldn8217;t it be Dolly?. And both have accidental encounters with men: at 10 p.m. the car Shruti8217;s seated in, collides with a car driven by a young man you suspect will turn out to be the man Babuji has chosen for her; at 11 p.m. Kashish drives a man, not only round the bend but off it too.

Personally, these fresh-faced children are about as hot as a cold shower. And less convincing than the prospect of a stable government in Uttar Pradesh. Take young Kashish, the eldest of five daughters of a widowed college professor. She8217;s better than her elders8212;Tulsi, Parvati, Prerna, Kusum8212;put together. She can cook8212;and can she cook: at breakfast she8217;s produced upma for one, eggs for another, parathas for a third and served Cornflakes to the fourth. She8217;s not Superwoman, she8217;s a five star hotel restaurant. Or listen to her speak. If Mayawati were to say, 8216;8216;aaj mein haar gayi8217;8217; you8217;d believe it was coming from the heart because she knows what it is to lose. When young Kashish mouths it, she sounds simply silly.

No sillier than the latest in designer TV. Have you noticed? They8217;re matching clothes with surroundings. Therefore, if the bedroom walls are white, Karan8217;s kurta pyjama will be too. If the kurta-pyjama happens to be blue, then the bedroom wall will be blue and if Tulsi is wearing a pink saree, yes, her room will be a pale shade of candy floss Kyunki.

There8217;s just one thing sillier than the girls and that8217;s the opening sequences of these serials. What8217;s common to them is that the characters are wreathed in smiles like Princess Diana8217;s coffin. It8217;s appropriate comparison because the lives of these characters are deadly sad and tragic. When was the last time there was something to smile about in Astitva Zee Devi Sony, Zindagi Terri Merri Sahara, Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand Star8212;to say nothing about every serial which begins with any letter of the alphabet? It8217;s wrong to call them saas-bahu serials, or K serials, they8217;re plain and simple rona-dhona in equal parts: rona because something invariably goes wrong and dhona because some one has to clean up the mess.

Awaaz8230;Dil Se Dil Tak Zee has plenty of tears. It ought to have exchanged names with Saraa Akaash Star Plus. The latter spends its time listening to the characters hearbeats while the Zee show takes us to the deep blue sky and beyond. Awaaz8230;is not your standard family drama in that the families here are separated by oceans of water when an aeroplane is hijacked and crashes into the sea, leaving an odd assortment of survivors to buoy there way to the nearest deserted island. Here they exchange tears and idiotic conversation. 8216;8216;Paani!8217;8217; screams one thirsty survivor, 8216;8216;Paani!8217;8217; echoes another.

No, this is not Survivors, although it is about survival of the fittest. The twist in the tale, because if there is a tail can a twist be far behind, is that back home, a police officer is languishing in jail for a security breach which allowed the hijackers through. It8217;s really unfair: the most popular serials tell us that you must place parivar before profession or personal happiness. And here is this officer imprisoned because he placed the life of his kidnapped son before a plane load of unknown people.