I guess it was only a matter of time. Our serials have had families from Gujarat (with every member of the parivaar furiously doing dandiya in between scheming and plotting for the downfall of some family relative or the other), Bengal (women in red-bordered sarees bustling around Durga Puja
pandals, coyly saying “Ooee Ma” every few minutes), Punjab (plenty of “puttars” and “kudis” littering the dialogue), Rajasthan (women in bandini sarees/ghagras deferentially addressing various matriarchs and patriarchs as ‘masa’ etc), Haryana (women wearing men’s shirts and everyone wandering about menacingly, carrying lathis) and Bihar (women wearing kilos of orange sindoor in their hair and everyone dropping words like ‘gauna’ and ‘hamaar’). I’m sure I’ve left out some part of the country, but never mind.
So it was only a matter of time before UP entered the picture (specially after the success of serials like Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo and Na Aana Is Des Lado, both of which are set in the north — Bihar and Haryana to be precise). The new serial is called Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya (Star Plus) and it’s set in Allahabad in UP. Characters use words like ‘kantaap’ (meaning ‘slap,’ for those not conversant with UP small town slang) and have dahi-jalebi as a breakfast treat.
As to the story, well, in keeping with the current trend of focusing on social issues, Pratigya is about how women have to cope with what we still call ‘eve-teasing.’ Standing up to local lafangas can have repercussions on the victim as well — as our heroine finds out, with her cantankerous grandmother blaming her for getting entangled with the ‘bad boys’ of the neighbourhood.
Till now, the family in the serial is pretty much what we’re used to — traditional, with dutiful wife and children. If there are any surprises, I haven’t seen them so far (unless you take the line that the father’s respect for education is a progressive sign).
For the last few weeks, I’ve also been seeing a show on Bindass called Sid And Varun, in which two guys (yes, called Sid and Varun) are assigned various tasks.
The one who does a task better wins and gives the loser a ‘punishment.’ (For example, one task could be — who can put together a better meal in a defined period of time?) The two try and sabotage each other, find short cuts etc. So far so good, and it’s fairly good fun in parts. But what can turn you quite green in the face are the kind of ‘punishments’ the two give each other.
Here are two examples. On one occasion, the winner takes his toothbrush and scrapes it on the sides of a toilet bowl and then asks the loser to brush his teeth with it. (I’m wincing even as I write this). On another occasion, the winner spits into a plate of food and does a couple of other things I can’t even bring myself to write about, and then asks the loser to eat that food. I leave it to you to figure out: is this funny? Is it even remotely entertaining?
And finally. Music reality shows in various permutations and combinations have been around for more than five years and everyone keeps moaning and groaning (including me) about how the format has become so stale and tired.
But new such shows keep popping up all the time, with monotonous regularity. The latest will premiere tonight on Star Plus — Music Ka Maha Muqabala. Singers like Shaan and Mika and Himesh Reshammiya and some others (it’s quite a motley crowd) lead teams of singers who compete with each other. The singers too are drawn from previous music reality shows (Toshi, Raja Hasan, Debojit, Harshit etc). Familiar ingredients stirred and shaken in a new cocktail. Will it work? Your guess is as good as mine.