{"id":1298,"date":"2016-05-03T10:11:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T10:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2026-07-17T14:02:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:02:58","slug":"pehredaar-piya-ka-star-plus-daily-tv-soaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"From Buniyaad to Naagin: My India on TV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\nI<\/span>\n\n<\/div>\nwas recently watching Ishqbaaz <\/em>when I felt a sharp stab of disappointment. The series airs on Star Plus \u2013 they who promised us in their re-branded campaign, \u201cRishta Wohi, Soch Nayi\u201d, to upgrade the level of thinking on Indian soaps. Ishqbaaz<\/em> features veteran TV actor, Mahesh Thakur, as an ageing industrialist desperately in need of a razor, who is having an affair with his secretary, Svetlana, who was also briefly engaged to his son. I\u2019m not sure what nayi soch this plot line promulgates but that\u2019s not what disappointed me. What disappointed me was Mahesh Thakur.\n\nThe first time I saw the actor on the small screen was as the hapless husband caught between the playful saas-bahu characters, the late Reema Lagoo and Supriya Pilgonkar in Tu Tu Main Main<\/em>. However, it was his performance as the sensitive, loving husband in Ravi Rai\u2019s Sailaab <\/em>(1995) that I primarily remember him for. Exploring the reconciliation and extramarital affair of two former lovers, Rohit (Sachin Khedekar) and Shivani (Renuka Shahane) and how it wrecks the lives of the people around them, including Thakur who plays Shivani’s husband, the weekly show displayed the multiple shades of grey to the relationship through quotidian moments and conversations. I never cared much for Shahane\u2019s bhabhi act in Hum Aapke Hain Koun!!<\/em> but her luminous performance as a woman caught between her past and present has remained with me ever since.\n\nI was living in Oman at that time and Indian satellite television had only just arrived in our midst in 1994. Prior to its arrival, my father would make weekly trips to the videocassette<\/a> library in the nearest town and bring back tapes of latest Hindi films, Mahabharata <\/em>episodes, and Pakistani serials. We consumed home \u2013 or what was almost-home \u2013 one reel at a time. Back then, the only TV series you could watch were those like Hum Log<\/em> or\u00a0Buniyaad<\/em>, produced for Doordarshan with a specific, nation-building purpose (Hum Log<\/em><\/a>, for instance, was coded with a family-planning agenda).\n\nThe arrival of Zee TV, Star Plus, and Sony TV meant that home was no longer a sea journey or a flight away. Where I\u2019d be profusely homesick on the flight back to Muscat once our annual trips to India were over, I now consoled myself with the thought that it was but a click of a remote control away.\n\n\"\"\n

\n

Hip Hip Hurray (1998) took us into the lives of young people\u2019s dilemmas at school.<\/p>\n

Image Credit \/ Zee TV<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\nThese soaps became windows into a life that I imagined inhabiting if I were ever to return to India. Unlike the escapist, illogical Bollywood capers<\/a> that we watched, these shows made India appear much more accessible through their realistic sets, dialogue, and costumes. Mujhe Chaand Chahiye<\/em> traced a young girl’s intense yearning to leave her small-town existence and become an actress while Tara<\/a><\/em> showed four spunky, memorable independent women characters.\n\n

The idea of a television series featuring a child in a romantic relationship with an adult (disturbing as it is) can only exist if you are trying to challenge the reality of child marriage, the way Balika Vadhu attempted to.<\/blockquote>\n\nEven if extramarital affairs were depicted on Sailaab<\/em> or Neena Gupta\u2019s Saans<\/em>, the subtext of which usually flew over my head, they were subtly interwoven into the script \u2013 and the show would still resonate with me. Hip Hip Hurray<\/em> (1998) took us into the lives of young people\u2019s dilemmas at school. There were soaps which were rooted in conservative attitudes then as well: Heena<\/em>, for example, where the titular protagonist initially defends and supports her cheating husband. But even that had a few redeeming qualities in its initial years.\n\nAs I grew older, I knew that these soaps were not always an accurate representation of the homeland. But they did seek to challenge reality and present a better alternative even as they entertained us. For me, they assuaged a restlessness, which filled me as I struggled to negotiate my identity as a child of the diaspora. What I saw in those shows, its stories and characters, were multiple Indias and a rich definition of what it meant to be an Indian.\n\n\"\"\n
\n

Everyone seemed to be resigned to this new menu of entertainment as if the old one had never existed. And when Pehredar Piya Ki released, I realised it was high time I gave up too.<\/p>\n

Image Credit \/ Sony Pictures Networks<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\nI came back to India a few years ago and tried to find that same India on TV. Instead, I found Botoxed-naagins<\/a>, shows where women leads turn into houseflies<\/a>, and a sanskaari poster boy with a Salman Khan body announcing that naaris should be daasis<\/a>. I kept waiting for someone to raise their hand and ask out loud: \u201cWhat in the name of God is going on here?\u201d But around me, everyone seemed to be resigned to this new reality and menu of entertainment as if the old one had never existed. And when Pehredaar Piya Ki <\/em>released, I realised it was high time I gave up too.\n\nThe idea of a television series featuring a child in a romantic relationship with an adult (disturbing as it is) can only exist if you are trying to challenge the reality of child marriage, the way Balika Vadhu<\/a><\/em> attempted to. Any other reason is simply vulgar titillation verging on sleaze. So when the makers of Pehredaar<\/a><\/em> defended the suhaag raat scene between an adult woman and a 10-year-old boy, which had troubling undertones of child abuse, as an \u201cinnocent\u201d bond between the two protagonists, of \u201ca rare bonding and friendship,\u201d instead of slamming it as a statement on child marriage, I realised we had reached a seminal moment for Indian television.\n\nWe are now willingly watching TV that openly reiterates oppressive realities and blatantly refuses to challenge them. This is absolutely the nadir and I doubt we can possibly go any lower. Until the day, of course, we see a series based on an illicit relationship between a 10-year-old naagin forced to marry a man twice her age and then have to deal with a scheming saas who is also a housefly.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up in Oman, my idea of home was shaped by TV series from the \u201990s such as Tara and Mujhe Chand Chahiye. What idea would I have grown up with if I were watching Naagin and Kundali Bhagya?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":1302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[2199,2200,2201,2202,2203,2204,2205,2206,2207,2208],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-daily-soaps","tag-ekta-kapoor","tag-indian-tv-serials","tag-ishqbaaz","tag-pehredaar-piya-ka","tag-saas-bahu","tag-saas-bahu-serials","tag-sasural-simar-ka","tag-star-parivar","tag-star-plus"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Buniyaad to Naagin: My India on TV<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Growing up in Oman, my idea of home was shaped by TV series from the \u201990s such as Tara and Mujhe Chand Chahiye. 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