In a well-researched book, Shoma Munshi argues that the bahu-soaps, far from being regressive, had strong women protagonists.
Two years ago, when I met Sakshi Tanwar, the lead “heroine” of Kahani Ghar Ghar Kii, on a “mandir” set in Film City, Mumbai, she was draped in a saree designed by Manish Malhotra. Sporting designer bangles and jewellery, she demurely held a pooja ki thali in her hands, ready to apply vermilion to her on-screen husband’s forehead — the same husband who was, unbeknownst to her, marrying her friend — the same friend whom Tanwar, as the on-screen Parvati, had befriended.
Confusing? Well, this was just one of the twists in the story that would, in subsequent episodes, ensure high TRPs for Star Plus, the channel on which this soap opera aired five nights a week (Monday-Friday, 10.00 pm).
If Indian television became an “industry” of sorts because of these soaps — a major contributor was Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms, which first stepped in to create TV serials with mammoth budgets — what was fascinating was the level of employment that the industry suddenly facilitated. For the record, when I met Tanwar, her body double was busy enacting some of the scenes!
Like them or hate them, you could hardly ignore the impact these soaps had on Indian audiences. Which is why one must thank Kuwait-based Shoma Munshi for taking note of their role in her book, Prime Time Soap Operas on Indian Television, for which she spent time in Mumbai and Delhi, researching the producers, writers and cast of the soaps as they played out night after night in living rooms around the country.
That these were dramas that merit study to gain an understanding into why — and how — TV soap operas became so well integrated with society, is to state the obvious. It is a case that these shows weren’t flippant, as many people would like to believe. On the contrary, they borrowed episodes from our lives and relationships, from our very own kitchen politics, and packaged them in a way that gave them a glamorous, though undoubtedly exaggerated, hue.
Although the book claims to be a study of Indian soaps in general, it concentrates largely on three production houses which changed the way Indian audiences watched television. These are Balaji Telefilms, Sphere Origins and Director’s Kut, which have produced channel-driver serials like Kahani Ghar Ghar Kii, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kasautii Zindagi Kay, Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar and Sapna Baabul Ka…Bidaai.
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The author deftly manages to weave in interesting anecdotes from her own experiences on the sets of these serials — in Balaji’s office, for instance, where “most of the people working… were all young women. The men were mainly security staff… and serving tea and coffee to visitors”, and where “pictures of the god Balaji are at the entrance, and a flick of a switch allows shlokas to be sung as one touches the feet of the god”. The author writes, “If prime time soap operas are women-centric, then there’s no better proof than… Balaji.”
It is also her claim through the stories that these soaps unravel, that the women protagonists in them are hardly regressive, as most critics and audiences believe, but should be viewed as strong, or progressive. That tag might actually have suited the on-screen characters of the likes of Shanti (aired on Doordarshan, about a young girl who fights for her rights and those of her mother when she discovers that she’s an illegitimate child) and Tara (Zee TV’s moneyspinner that showcased a contemporary woman’s trials and tribulations). These women weren’t mangalsutra-clad queens — far from it. Munshi makes a case for the traditional women in the soaps upholding dharma, but at best the case is argumentative and hardly convincing.
It must be remembered that though these women are central to these shows, and while Munshi argues that “the chief women protagonists are represented not only as strong [but even] superhuman”, it remains that in numerous episodes, in the subplots, these women characters — particularly the “good” ones — suffer, cry and face the consequences of what others (the “evil” bahus and mothers-in-law, for instance) are doing to them. The scriptwriters make use of exactly these clichéd situations, the protagonists suffering somewhat intolerably till they rise to defend the honour of the family, whatever that sacrifice — a wayward husband, a son for whom justice must be meted in the hands of the mother — before her beliefs and, sometimes, her independence will be respected. Sandiip Sikcand, creative head, Balaji Telefilms, in an interview with Munshi, admits, while talking about the issue of “multiple wives” in these soap operas, that this is done “purely for drama. If TRPs are falling, we bring in another woman.”
It might be an original argument, but Munshi defends her position well, extracting details from those whose lives have been touched — and thus impacted — by these stories. From production heads to channel honchos to the authorities that rate these soaps, from advertisers to actors and writers, Munshi makes it clear that they have all benefitted as the soaps ruled prime time TRPs before, mysteriously, dying out in the face of changing audience interest.
There’s no gainsaying that the book is well researched book, nor that it provides insights into the psyche and vision of the soap makers. Ironically, the book comes at a time when DD completes 50 years, when reality television rules the roost, when soap queen Ekta Kapoor has moved beyond the letter “K” to get embroiled in a casting controversy (she got youngsters to lock lips at auditions), and when child stars and poverty have replaced the bahus as the subject for soaps and serials. There are many more “women of substance” on the new shows (though they continue to suffer in a patriarchal setup). Just like these soaps, who knows, maybe Munshi, too, will return with a sequel.
PRIME TIME SOAP OPERAS ON INDIAN TELEVISION
Author: Shoma Munshi
Publisher: Routledge
Pages: xv + 312
Price: Rs 595
