Unrealistically real

The latest show on Colors - Bairi Piyahas an interesting plot but too many loopholes, writes Rachana Dubey.

Bairi Piya
Show: Bairi Piya
Station: Colors
Time: 8.30 pm, Monday to Friday
Cast: Supriya Kumari, Sharad Kelkar

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From the opening scene, you can preempt (if you are a soap addict) that the woman is all set to commit suicide, along with her three children (Yet, she still manages to get herself a spiffy manicure). Chalo, she wants to die fashionable!

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Cut to a chirpy set of clean, neatly dressed, happy-go-lucky kids (with happy floaters on their feet). Never mind if they come from an impoverished family in a remote village where spartan meals have to be divided and they get to eat only on alternate days. Everyone around looks healthy despite being famished.

There are even lush green trees in a supposedly in a drought-stricken area. And just two men and two sets of children in focus.

One of the children has made a swastik from leftover paper... It’s too perfect to have been made by a child. Anyway, this swastik is stuck on a freshly painted wall in a village where you can’t afford two square meals. Art for heart’s sake, wot?
Amoli (Supriya Kumari) and the rest of her family speak chaste north-Indian Hindi without even a Marathi accent despite the fact that they’re living in the interiors of Maharashtra.

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The script at the outset establishes the plot and carefully etches out each character’s traits. Your heart goes out to a little girl who is given warm water and asked to pretend that it’s an egg cooked in ghee.

Similarly, the plight of a farmer who is asked to mortgage his daughter for money tugs at your heartstrings even though the actors themselves don’t look the part.

There is plenty of scope for drama and those loking for something ‘real’ have a Bairi Piya to tune into.