"interview"

A interview taken to understand the nuances of Hindi TV serials:

Mr. Subhasis Chakraborty’s opinions about “Hindi TV serials and the society and the changing plot”:

  “Hindi Tv serials score over our Bengali serials because of national coverage.                                                                           

If I was to fall back to my childhood days, the TV series that fascinated me the most was Fauji, starring Shah Rukh Khan. If the 70’s were the era of the angry young man, the 80’s brought in the hero looking for a socio-economic establishment. I could get a glimpse of bollywood and sense its glamour, since I was not much allowed to indulge in movie watching at the time by my parents. I did not watch Hum Log or Buniyaad for the same reason. I did watch few of the episodes of hum log on youtube though some time back. Fauji was about the young protagonist becoming a soldier in the Indian army, his romance with the army doctor. It was a story of patriotism… yes to some extent I did identify with the protagonist.

The other series that I would get a chance to watch some time or the other was Circus, again starring Shah Rukh Khan.

I even watched few of the episodes of Rajni and liked it.

The basic aim of hindi serial according to me, to maximize its “reach” and “time spend”.And all these depend on the TRP-TV Rating Point.

 According to the analysis of TAM MEDIA RESEARCH, how many people are watching a programme that’s associated with reach of the programme, at the same time how long they are watching a programme without shifting the channel, that’s associated with the time spend of the programme-these determine the making of TV serials for it reflects the interests of the people watching them.

Being a popular art form, hindi serials follow the ideology of “Indian ness”, its nationalism, secularism and reflects its patriarchal form. There is also a joint family structure, a grandfather or a father figure. This pattern is present in the society and this is what the serials show. Women are the main viewers of these soaps, thus the saas bahu formula works for them. Nothing is more intimidating than the tussle, the tug of war between the mother-in-law and the daughter -in-law. Serials mostly portray characters in black and white. This is done to add the dramatic effect, to induce the idea of morality working at all the layers of the society.

Women form the maximum bulk of the serial viewing population. So to sale the serials, the producers and the directors put in many woman characters, discuss their life, their expectations and their trials and follies, celebrate their achievements at the slightest pretext.

Hindi TV serials for that matter all TV serials do affect the children, they get matured quite fast, they get to know things beyond their age and thus there is a loss of the actual childhood. Complications in families do result from this unwanted development. It seems children no more act like children; they all are adolescents from the age of 5 or 6.

I haven’t seen much of the serials meant for children, thus won’t be able to judge as to whether they have been able to meet the required demands.

But I feel if there is a scope all the serials of any language do have a chance to better themselves.

All across the country there is a large section of the population who lead a superstitious life, are orthodox believers of gods, from whom religion is the means of ideal livelihood-mythological serials cater to these section of people. Rural India would come under this section. The urban sector seems to have grown out of such myths; it is only the aged who have given their life to religious rituals watch these mythological serials.

Necessity of mythological serials is a relative discussion.

Again, analyzing positive and negative factors of mythological serials is difficult…all I can say, Mahabharata and Ramayana, when first aired in Doordarshan made people stick to their TV sets, it was a joint family TV viewing affairs…these serials would transport the audience to a different place, time and situation, make them aware of their culture..The built up fantastic atmosphere was enough, to many the viewer faithful to the serials. Thus the techniques, special effects were seldom noticed. Now there are several such mythological serials telecasted in most cable channels, the intensifying effect of the old DD days have ceased to exist.

Art form is never absolute…it creates the dream, the desire suppressed in viewer’s mind…if serials are to be made as an absolute representation of the society-it becomes news. Even documentaries are little bit made up. Serials are never the TRUE picture of the society.

People are prone to watching Hindi serials than the Bengali ones due to several factors.

The Hindi serials have a huge market in India, the north is its faithful audience and the south is catching up. The serial making teams has huge budget, thus it can produce better quality serials than the regional ones, which lack these requirements. The sets are elaborate, the props are better, advance techniques are employed, thus the entire get up become more attractive, thus draws the potential audience more easily than its regional counterparts.

The serials in early days focused on the middle class, sometimes in the 90’s it shifted to the upper class, so called the elite section. As for now, the focus is on the village scenario, since TV coverage has increased and in order to attract the villagers, we have to depict them in the serials too.

I don’t think this section-vise depiction of the society is bias. Serials show what the pulse of the time, situation, and social condition suggest.

Also, the choice of portraying a particular section of the society depends on the policies of the channel on which the particular serial is shown. The policies again are determined from the agency TRP reports depending on viewership analysis.

I think in the present day Hindi TV serials the technique is  better, as per the storyline-the  Indian-ness remain, it is more fast content wise to do away with boredom. Old serial showed more details in each of the shots, in present day serials the total take gets established in a short time in turn making the narrative fast.

The themes of TV serials cannot be compartmentalized like pure drama, social issue or simple comedy. It is either dramatically presented social issues or comedy with social issues; social issue always is the main factor. Thus both the above mentioned blends are popular.

Yes serials do help in forming opinions-‘gossip feeds the serials, serials feed the gossip…’’

Mr. Subhasis Chakraborty, has worked as an  EPISODE DIRECTOR of a Mega Serial, named  EK JE ACCHE KANYA, (Akash Bangla) Story, Script and Directed by Sandip Chaudhury. He was a PROGRAMMER cum POST PRODUCTION DIRECTOR of ERAO SHATRU(zee bangla).  He was also an Assistant Director in Documentary film: A JOURNEY WITH KAKMARAS (2002)Dir: Dhananjay Mondal,  and Bengali Feature Film : ANAMNI ANGANA Dir: Dr. Swapan Saha, released in 2002.