The Rule Of The 'K'

Khis kost kis kedicated ko khe kenius kof Kekta Kapoor. v1.0*

PROBLEM STATEMENT:
(The cause of unrest, the precursor of intellectual malaise...)

"Originally, the serial was supposed to be called "Amma" (Mother), but was revised to
the current title on the suggestion of the costume designer."

-Wikipedia on "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi"

"Some words such as "Kyunki", "Kahani", "Parvati", "Tulsi", "Thakurji" are to be
apologetically incorporated into The Oxford's repertoire of dictionaries. The officials
are shamefaced about the whole affair which gushes oafishness and sectarianism"

“The women in my serials are strong, with minds of their own”

"I create familial cliches to break them"

-Ekta Kapoor

"Such is the rarefied genius of Ekta Kapoor. A simple indicator of that is, on application of her dogmatic principle. The Boltzmann Constant, 'k' or rather the Koltzmann Konstant... only one word out of the first line makes sense, however only to an Indian, only if Kekta kould, I'm sorry, could be a name."

"It’s cloak-and-dagger stuff. A real-life war of supremacy that can put any television soap to shame. And the script is simple — money, money, money."

* * *

In my house, like many of those tormented and addicted ones peppered across this landscape, evenings are anniversaries of the lifelong romance of women, and some disoriented men too, for this 'phenomenon' to have swept this industry. I shall refrain from taking those names, because, it would be matter of life and death for me to immolate this blog's honor or whatever remains of it with those unspeakable names of her creations, stomping across airtime on Star Plus. Each day, from as soon as seven in the evening to as late as twelve in the night, its all a show of delusional emotions and heightened melodrama.



The one which imperils your senses at 2200hrs, shows the female protagonist on a come back stint, ingratiating for the umpteenth time with the perishing good in her family, the brutalized old and the illusioned young, under the able guidance of the vamp of the family, again played for the umpteenth time by someone who has a name for all this. Now Ms. Kapoor's talent surfaces just now. Even to the unknown eye, in this case me, you dont take more than a minute to understand what happened in the previous hundred episodes. You observe the expressions, the copious out of the body experiences, the ego, counter-ego and the person herself talking in a protracted affair, lasting two minutes, and even if the person happens to be in the middle of a busy street, stacked with people, nobody even dares to brush her physical form.



Here it is simple, like it has been for the previous some thousand episodes, there are the good guys and there are the bad guys. Bad guys win and good guys finish last, often bad guys take control of their homes, drive them out, take away their property, innumerable factories and crores of rupees. Often when the bad guys commit crimes and the vigilante-cum-protagonist gather evidences after fifty episodes of breathless hard work, somehow for some odd reason, the bad guys always find a way, buy out witnesses, whatever happened to the crores of rupees with the good guys, what is that for? To be lost in some court case to the bad guy over some counterfeit but unproven will? Also, inevitably across all the sons and daughters of Tatas and Birlas, their offsprings always betroth with the offspring of the long lost foe, which again does a reappearance after hundred episodes. Misled children against the darling of the audience, A quandary laid out to defame the darling with such a crafty maverick of the current villain(for fifty episodes again), the sly and opportunistic villain pitted against such species of lambs, the odd combinations of old couples portrayed with such benevolence that it makes you wonder, what families do they come from?



It is in our conscience, that middle aged women contrite with their disability to help the on-screen legends, have a soft corner for people who have any of these family names: Virani, Agarwal, Bajaj, Garewal, Wadhwa, Basu etc. Just look at the lambs they have made out of the women in all their escapades. A female character is a happy-go-lucky, rooted to her adarsh figure of trust and philanthropy until she transforms into a vengeful machine in the clutches of the director and of the well known script writer-cum- obscure Hindi novelist. It speaks out that, come what may, women with names of Pallavi and Mohini are never trustworthy! After a merry go round of five marriages and divorces, where the darling loses her memory thrice in between after being cradled to hospitals with a different gonna-be hubby running beside the stretcher every time and after two miscarriages and two illegitimate sons plus one from the first and now-deceased/forgotten husband makes her a mother of whopping eight children each having grand children of their own, and still, she is as fresh and as nubile as a morning bird! Whoa! Thats one life, many of us haven't evolved to live!


More than ten minutes of exposure results in a bombination in your head, a resounding sharp screech, every time the camera zooms or pans, every time the seeds of conspiracy are sown, every time the cry of defiance is raised. Welcome Ekta Kapoor, the celebrator of human emotions. Has Time forgotten her? She is perhaps the only individual alive after that monk who re-sketched the map of India to have the most number of lives influenced per square kilometer on this earth, not forgetting that we are the second most populous country on this earth, and that China does not have such an aggressive school of television direction! Jingles, custom made according to the face cut, height and weight of the actor playing a particular character, are repeated from one soap to the other. This Kapoor penetration has so far only been limited to Star Plus, yet to vanquish the aspirations and successes of other film makers in other channels. But are their aliters any better?



Glamor is an irresistible paradigm for all of these creators. Perhaps it is one of the means to keep their effeminate crew occupied, pronouncing that pout of fitfulness and that tone of eyeshadow, welcome Ekta Kapoor, the trend setter. Jwellers and Boutiques industries are experiencing a never before high, a seemingly bumper figure of sales, after all the porcine aunties of the block go to the boutique-wallah of the block to get that embroidery and to the jweller for that necklace she saw yesterday. Nevertheless, for such impromptu beseeching from their wives, its endless concern for the menfolk, in what should be read as the side effects of the rule of the K. Women in this wonderland, are goldmines! They eat, sleep and feel at least ten kilos overweight with that that two kilo sari and eight kilos of fresh American diamonds and polished German Brass, and after the regular party at eight for some self-congratulatory award, they come back to have either a convivial session where the darling goes to each room, kissing goodnight or an epic battle of words about some inconsistency twenty years ago. We swear we never have enough.



In today's social hinterland, people swear by this media tycoon. Some swear by her antics, some swear by the immense success and monopoly of her work, some even swear by the immaculate and holier than thou characters, which have sky rocketed all their portrayers into those Lists-of-most-influential-people-in-the-world, and then there are the Pharmaceutical firms, glycerin manufacturers, its to her credit that fake ornament makers, finding its bearings as a cottage industry, all beaconing and hallowing her. The rise and rise of Ekta Kapoor. Or. The Demise and Demise of the Audience; and then comes the ignored, diseased lot, deprived of mention and concern, these hapless beings roam around hopeless, about watching something at prime time, courtesy this madame. A damned comrade to this clan - me. I am trapped between a visual and aural onslaught of two of the most profound forces in AV media. News Channels(its another story...) and Mademoiselle Kapoor. The two televisions have been possessed by them, having hardly any rights over the remote, all the young and the hopeless of the house either go out or sit and lament, and some take it to writing, like me. In a CRT awash with screens of putrid human existence and an even more filthy human malice, we have no option but to lose faith in the current runners and wait, wait till there is an uptide, a mutiny, an ordained change of regime, and I wait until I get my own TV set....and remote!

Somebody, get that costume designer... He/She/(s)He is a understated, indubitable, undiluted, eccentric Genius! A blotched stroke of genius!



*This is a presentist's post. A general reflection of the current engagements of the Indian television, the shows that enjoy focus and their translations, directly and indirectly in our daily lives. Please, otherwise, I adore her....well, guile!

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