Colours of Holi and Arnab’s histrionics: Hindi TV serials have it all but you miss Nimki

It is increasingly clear to soap opera addicts that Arnab Goswami & Co. have acquired their talent for ugly histrionics on TV news from Hindi serials.

Nimki Mukhiya | Facebook

By the time you read this — if you have time to read this — the flying colours of Holi will have added to the pollution around you.

Watch Dil Toh Happy Hai Ji (Star Plus) or the many Hindi TV serials currently celebrating the festival, and you will see all the action through a rainbow cloud of powders.

The eyesight of the main characters maybe be further blurred by the amount of ‘bhang’ they consume at Holi parties: Happy – yes, that is her name – was seen gulping it from a glass, under the mistaken impression that it was water.

Rocky, who anyway has stars in his eyes each time he looks at her, was about to see double.  You could sense they were both in for trouble but you will have to wait for a week, at least, for the intoxication of the festival to subside before the plot moves forward.

Hindi TV serials, typically, move like they are perpetually under the influence of a potent drug. For instance, Kasauti Zindagi Kay (Star Plus) has spent the better part of 130-odd episodes over six months with Prerna and Anurag staring at each other passionately, endlessly, in slow motion and to the accompaniment of the title song, without ever admitting ‘the love that dare not speak its name’.

And then, perversely, when you have given up on their romance, they declare their love, ‘marry’ and consummate their marriage in a jiffy, leaving Prerna pregnant even as Anurag goes and marries the evil, blackmailing Komolika and heads off to a honeymoon with her only for them to end up in prison.

Confused? Well, who said Hindi serials were simple, easy to understand?  No wonder, viewers are flocking to news channels for entertainment.

Like they did on March 1 when Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s Wagah border crossing beat Happy and Rocky, Prerna and Anurag in the viewership stakes.

Hindi TV serials are slow and seriously complicated. For instance, Anurag loves Prerna but Prerna doesn’t know that about it, which is why she delivers a stinging slap on his cheek at a public gathering.

Talking of slaps, they resound across TV entertainment channels as part of the dramatic confrontations at public gatherings so popular in Hindi TV serials. For instance, in Kesarri Nandan (Colors) the young Kesarri slaps Jawahar who has come to her home with a proposal of marriage — child marriage, alas, since the serial is set in Rajasthan — after he insults her father. And Kesarri is not just any young girl, she’s a wrestler.

It is increasingly clear to regular Hindi soap opera addicts that TV anchor Arnab Goswami & Co. have acquired their talent for ugly histrionics on television news from Hindi TV serials. For the art of pitting protagonists against each other to generate ‘entertainment’ has long since been perfected by the soaps.

Consider: on Colors, a serial that goes by the name Gathbandhan – yes, TV serials have them too — Dhanak, an IPS officer in the making, is just married to mafia rogue Raghu and into his notorious family led by his mother, the Don. At a garden party celebration, another female don pulls a gun on Raghu’s mother along with the women of her clan, whereupon Dhanak holds a gun to her husband seated in a wheelchair and Raghu’s gang pulls out its guns too. Visually, it’s an amazing scene — full of guns and roses (as part of decorations).

Now, isn’t that exactly what happens in the news studios, where everyone is gunning for everyone else?

The fact is, melodrama in films, news studios or on the sets of a TV serial seems to succeed with Indian audiences like nothing else.

See what has happened to the thoroughly enjoyable, Nimki Mukhiya (Star Bharat). It used to be a lighthearted, satirical serial of a simple, self-obsessed young village girl, Nimki, who dreams of Bollywood and accidentally becomes the village sarpanch, marrying a handsome hunk, Babbu, whom she loves madly. Babbu, the son of a corrupt local politician, is contemptuous of her.

Nimki was a joy, full of artless conversation that made you laugh. There was no one quite like her on TV. And so, what do they go and do? Try to make her like all the other female characters on TV. From a fun-loving girl, she has become an avenging goddess after Babbu rapes her for insulting his father and her own father disappears. It’s all very grim now, rather like Babbu, who hasn’t smiled once since the serial began in August 2017.

The relief from such relentless emotional atyachaar is either in the reality shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati (Sony) or the supernatural —and hence popular — Naagin 3 (Colors) or the epics (Mahabharat, RadhaKrishn — Star Bharat).

Anything that is half realistic, like Sony shows Patiala Babes – about the coming out of a traditional mother Babita with the help of her teenage daughter Mini — or Ladies Special (about the lives of three women who meet on the local Mumbai train) is not half as popular.

English entertainment TV channels have thrown in the towel with the increasing success of streaming companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Look at the 9 pm line up: the talk show Jimmy Kimmel from 2003 (Star World Premiere), the thriller Strike Back from 2014 (Star World HD Premiere), Australia’s Next Top Model (AXN) and The Chef’s Line (Zee Cafe).

Yawn.