Hindi TV Serial - Punar Vivah - Ishita in her quest to get Yash to be hers

The serial is moving into apparently the final week of this series, with the new season of the soap ready to start soon, and hence the current serial needs to be wrapped up soon. Ishita is under a lot of pressure, since she wants Yash to be hers, while she is now under pressure from both Akash and Aarti about her behavior, and has to move matters quickly. On both these fronts, matters will get very dangerous for her, leaving her with very little time.
Ever since she was prevented from marrying Yash and married Akash, Ishita has always wanted to marry Yash. This is becoming a passion with her and she is willing to do anything to get this ambition of hers fulfilled, not caring about her being married to Akash (who is still vulnerable, even though he has got a lot of love from his brothers) and about Yash being happily married to Aarti and having many children with Aarti. For Ishita, she is now the total villain of the piece, and will do anything in her quest to harm Aarti. She tried to harm Aarti before her delivery, but was unable to do anything. After that, after Ayu was born, Ishita did not give up and finally got the kidnap of Ayu done. Aarti was initially blamed for this, but soon after, the same child was adopted back by Pari and brought back into the house.
By now, Aarti is very suspicious of Ishita, but like many other Hindi Serials, the makers of the serial always show the good people to be a bit dumb, always expecting that people will get better over a period of time and will lose their badness, and many times have to suffer because of that (some serials can show this suffering to happen for many months or years, while other serials can show this suffering to be a bit shorter). She wants to ensure that no harm can come to the family because of Ishita, but is not cunning enough to prevent Ishita from doing what she wants to do - she has to catch Ishita after she has done whatever she wanted to do.
Now, Ishita is in trouble with Akash wanting to be intimate with her, while Ishita is trying to rebuff him, and even tells him that she is using him to get closer to somebody else. Akash finally mentions the divorce word, and asks her whether she is interested in divorcing Akash since she is not really interested in the marriage. However, Ishita gets a reprieve after that when Akash has to go Bhopal for some work. Soon after, Ishita has a confrontation with Aarti where she gets 2 stinging slaps from Aarti since Aarti again believes that Ishita is after Yash. Also, when there are some dancers in the house for a function, Aarti traces one of them as being the one who was involved at the time of Ayu's kidnap, and gets the information from her that Ishita was involved in the kidnap.
With so little time left, Ishita has to move quickly. She has to quickly snare Yash in a situation where he cannot deny, and so gets him to a hotel elsewhere with the pretense that she has a detective to investigate the kidnapping and that the detective is getting closer. She then gets Yash to drink a juice that has been drugged and is hoping to showcase Yash in an intimate scene, so that he cannot deny what happened.

Hindi TV Serial - Godbharai - Being given the baby Krishna on a temporary basis for adoption

Godbharai is a serial on Sony that deals with the character of a lady in a marriage who does not have a child after many years of marriage, and who gets socially blamed for this. It eventually gets bad enough that they do a test, and it is determined that Aastha is fine medically, and it is Shivam who is deficient. Aastha does not want to expose him to any amount of ridicule, so they do not go in for any kind of treatment.
And then the miracle happens, on Janmashtami day, Aastha finds a baby in a small basket in the water, and is incredibly happy. The baby is called Krishna, and they are incredibly happy with the baby. However, not everybody in the family is happy, since the sister-in-law feels that her own kid will lose a portion of the inheritance, and tries her tactics to make things uncomfortable.
And then the disaster happens. It turns out that getting the baby to Aastha was a contrived accident, where Shivam had arranged to steal the baby from an orphanage and get it to Aastha. And then the police get involved, where the lady running the orphanage finally takes the baby back and declines to make a police case about it. Aastha was pretty angry with Shivam about doing all this.
However, they finally decide that they were very attached to the baby Krishna, and decide to go back to the orphanage for adopting Krishna, and are then told that there is another couple who has already committed for the adoption. However, finally the other couple lets them take the baby, but they are given a period of 3 months in which they can demonstrate that they are capable of taking good care of the young child.

Aap ki Antara - A time shift to slightly older people

Zee TV’s Aap Ki Antara takes a leap along with the change in the time slot
Meet the new Antara, Abhishek and Billu
This would be the last week when the audiences will get to watch the masti and antics of the little kiddos of Aap ki Antara. Yes, the show takes a leap along with the change in the time slot. Earlier telecasted Monday – Friday at 8:30 pm, the show has been shifted to 10:30 pm time band, Monday – Thursday. Sooraj Barjatya’s latest offering ‘yahaan main Ghar Ghar Kheli’ will now be shown at the 8:30pm time band, mon –fri , starting 17th November.
The latest development also comes with a leap. From the coming week (16 November 2009) the audiences will find all the kids- Antara, Abhishek & Billu in their adolescence. The primary traits of all the characters will remain the same except for some behavioral pattern.





Antara’s character will be played by Aaina Mehta. We’ll now find Antara more proactive and tuned to a fixed routine in life. She would switch off all the lights of the house at 10pm because 10pm is her sleeping time. She’ll also trying speaking a few wrds.
Abhishek’s character will be played by Sahil and Billu’s character would be portrayed by Sandeep Upadhyay. We’ll find Abhishek over burdened with responsibilities. Billu on the other hand would turn out to be really sharp and manipulative but in a good way. A good soul by heart but loves to do all kinds of tomfoolery to get ahead in life.

Dhairya Sorecha & Afsha Musani To Host ‘Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs’

ln an exciting development, Zee TV has announced Dhairya Sorecha and Afsha Musani as the hosts of ‘Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L’il Champs’. The show that launched on June 5th 2009, has certainly brought in great innovations in its format with the most important being the show’s theme - ‘Boys v/s Girls’. To support this format, for the very first time on Indian television, the show would have a kids’ couple as sutradhars. Dhairya and Afsha make their debut as anchors in coming episodes on June 19th at 9.30 p.m.
10 years old Dhairya has been in the industry for the last seven years and has acted in about 65 commercials with really big brands and celebrities. He is a very popular child actor and was last seen in movies like Babul, Partner and Tahaan. Currently studying in the 6th grade, Dhairya, has now become a household face.




6 years old Afsha though has a completely different story to tell. Afsha hit the jackpot when she was first seen at the auditions for ‘Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L’il Champs’. Afsha’s confidence and charm was mesmerising and the judges, Alkaji and Abhijeet Da, fell in love with her. She was referred to the channel and the team decided to take her on board, not as a participant but as an anchor, along with Dhairya. Studying in class one, Afsha is an excellent singer and has been practising music ever since she was two years old.

Uttaran - the departure and re-arrival of Tapasya

Uttaran had a major scene ongoing for the past 2 weeks. The adored and pampered daughter of the house, Tapasya had been getting very jealous over the treatment that her parents had been according to Ichcha. Ever since the confrontation where Jogi Thakur was discovered to have been in the car when Damini's husband was killed in an accident many years back, Jogi Thakur (Ayub Khan) and his wife Divya have taken on much more responsibility for Damini and Ichcha and have got Ichcha admitted to the same school as Tapasya. Initially, Tapasya is happy, but as she sees that her parents are sharing their love now with Ichcha and her young mind is unable to understand that this does not mean that they love Tapasya less, she starts to hate Ichcha for taking the love of her parents.
In all this, Mausiji also keeps on provoking Tapasya, to the extent that Tapasya is now looking for a way to get Ichcha out of the house. She gets an opportunity when they go to the zoo for a school trip, and is there that Tapasya leaves Ichcha behind deliberately. Ichcha gets left behind, and wanders through the night, scared and dehydrated, entering the forest. She gets found over in the morning, and is then brought home. Then, even though Ichcha does not take Tapasya's name, Jogi Thakur starts believing that Tapasya is behind this, and Tapasya admits this when she is questioned.
Jogi Thakur is very angry at this, and decides that Tapasya has done something extraordinary for which she needs to be held responsible, and decides to send her to boarding school, so that she gets out of her current spoilt behavior. At the same time, he gives a harsh warning to Mausiji to not interfere any more and poison Tapasya's mind even more. Tapasya does not like going to boarding school, but is taken and is not liking the place. Eventually, she gets gets sick and is brought home.

Little Shalini of Zee TV L’il Champs impresses a maestro like Usha Uthup in the first innings itself

Little Shalini mukherjee of kolkata is a gem; she has not only surprised Alka Yagnik but also Usha Uthup and Suresh Wadikar in the mumbai auctions ...Shalini completely surprised the judges when she sang ,” jhoom jhoom jhoom baba” – a number from the movie Kasam paida karne wale ki , immortalized by the legendary Usha Uthup herself.
Usha Uthup was so very captivated by her song that she walked up to the 8 year old kid and said, “ I was a matured singer when I sang this number… but you being of such tender age sang this song even better than me…. I am totally awestruck!!! Do I have the privilege of standing next to you and sing the song once again???”

Shalini is a 4th standard girl from kolkata


Little shalini and her mother's happiness on hearing this cud not be compared to anything..

Jai Sri Krishna: Finally the character grows up

Jai Sri Krishna is another version of the mythological serial, this one appearing on Colors at 8:30 in the evening on weekdays. The serial has been showing an extended series of episodes portraying Sri Krishna in a young version; now, the serial is finally changing to show the Lord in a older, teenage version.
The kid who plays the young character is extremely cute, giving an angelic portrayal as the young god, who knows his powers and uses them for the good of mankind. His demonic uncle (mother's brother) knows that this is the kid who will eventually kill him and sends all manners of demons, asuras, monsters, snakes, etc to kill him, but all of them fail in their duty (either being killed by the young god, or shown the error of their ways and going back convinced that the young one is the ultimate savior of mankind).
The serial also attempts to portray some social evils and how the God tries to improve society; so you the case of Lord Krishna convincing people that there is no such thing as upper caste or lower caste; in another sequence the Lord gets reconciliation between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law; he also consoles a mother when she is about to die and arranges to take care of her son.
Now, with the Lord being shown in a slightly more grown up state, one can expect that there will be the move to Mathura where Krishna will leave Gokul and his adopted parents, fight Kans and win, and then the real story will start going up to the war between the Pandavas and Kauravas.

The new character:



Last episode with kid:



More videos from Youtube (click here)

New Serial on Zee TV: Aap Ki Antara

Zee TV is coming out with a new serial on May 1 at 8:30 PM, the current time slot of Maayka, which means that either Maayka will off air or move to a new time slot. Aapki Antara is produced by Drishtant Productions will be the tale of a special child who redeems lot of lives during her journey. The show has already has some controversy with the withdrawal of the earlier child artist who plays the lead, Apple Reetoria. She is now being replaced by another new find, Zaynah. Apparently, Apple's mother withdrew her from the show since she was not happy with the attitude of the production house, although the show's producers claimed that they wanted a 5 year old girl rather than a 4 year old girl.
The show is about the interactions of the kid while being part of a family that includes her parents and brother, and have various flavors of life as a part of that. It is not clear as of now whether Antara plays the role of a autistic kid, with the producers not confirming, just claiming that the girl would be special to her family. There are supposed to be more kids in the show, including a neighbor, but there would not be negative characters, and not too many characters overall in the show.
Here are some advertisements about the show:

Uttaran on Colors

Uttaran was a different type of serial, very interesting, and yet very painful in parts. It takes us away from the usual television stories of either reality shows, or human drama, and moves to the story of what are the emotions and feelings of a poor girl and her mother (who works as a maid, and yet has a certain amount of self-respect). They work in a rich house, where the daughter of the house is the same age as that of the poor girl, and is also about the unlikely friendship that develops between the 2 girls, and the strain in this friendship that comes up. Uttaran in Hindi literally means the cast-off, and symbolizes how the poor get the cast-off items of the rich once they are done with them (and that happens in most households; if food is left over and no one is willing to eat, it goes to the maid; if a shoe or clothes are worn down, they can be handed over to the maid or some other domestic help). We just don't see too much about this on television.



The story is about the girl called Ichchha (meaning wish) (played by child artiste
Sparsh Khanchandani), whose mother, Damini (Vaishali Thakkar) works as the maid in the house of Jogi Thakur (Ayub Khan) and Divya (Pragati Mehra). The daughter of the house is called Tapasya (played by Ishita). Initially, Damini lived under a lot of conditions, but the lenient nature of Jogi Thakur and the friendship between Ichchha and Tapasya prevented Damini from being thrown out of the house (although the Mausiji living in the house, played by Pratima Kazmi, cannot stand Damini or her daughter and want her evicted).
Things reach a peak when it is revealed that Jogi Thakur was involved in the accident that killed Damini's husband, and she throws a lot of accusations at Jogi Thakur, but when she starts to leave the house, Divya falls down the stairs, and Damini stays to help her out. After this, both Jogi Thakur and Divya take a lot more care of Ichchha, something that causes a lot of jealousy in Tapasya, since she believes that her parents are not loving her anymore, and this feeling is strengthened by Mausiji, who poisons the young mind of Tapasya.

Videos of Uttaran on Youtube (link)

Ichchha going to school:

Balika Vadhu on Colors - the entry of Farida Jalal

So far, Balika Vadhu on Colors was showing the extremely bad side of female repression, where in a twist, women in the household are in fact suppressed by the matriarch of the house herself. It is the grand-mother Kalyani who sets the agenda for everybody in the house, who decides on the limited freedom that women of the house have, and so on.
So, you have a household where widows are seen as people who have a bad fate, who are to be avoided, and who have a dark life without color. The same fate befalls Sugna, even though her grandmother deeply loves her, and ensures that Sugna does not go to her in-laws house where she would be blamed for the death of her husband. Similarly, Gehna, the new daughter-in-law should not have any independent feelings, and be totally subservient to her husband and family.
In the midst of all these backward customs and rituals, comes in Farida Jalal as the elder sister of Kalyani, who tries to make sure that things change for the better. So, Farida Jalaal learns about the customs and problems in the house and tries to make the required changes, once intervening in a dispute with a neighbor that she resolves without any force, just through persuasion. She tries to get Anandi more rights, and seems to be succeeding to some degree. In the same way, she is trying to get more rights for Gehna and Sugna, so that they do not feel stifled in the house, but she is running into a now rebellious Kalyani, who tells her a few things. As a result, Farida Jalal has now seemingly left the house.

Balika Vadhu on Colors - more problems

I have serious issues with the serial, Balika Vadhu. The serial takes on a social ill such as child marriage, but somehow does not convey the message that this is wrong. It is more in the nature that there are problems in the life of the girl who is getting married, but the message is very subtle. I recently came across many people who love the program, and it is gaining in popularity (the serial seems fresh, with a decent pace of movement, and the characters seem normal); however, from no one I heard anything to the extent that this serial portrays something that is wrong. This is very worrying, since overall, as the serial progresses, it could make it seem that child marriage is not illegal, and basically requires some adjustment. After all, if the grandmother were better behaved and more understanding, this would be an ideal household and no one even think about whether the child marriage is illegal.
Further, the serial depicts a society that is very tolerant of child marriage, with not even a fig leaf of any opposition by society, government or the police. It would seem like that the Government or the police have nothing to do in this society, and there are no efforts to prevent this display of child marriage. The fear is that this may be taken to mean a social sanction of the concept of child marriage.
The next problem that the serial is showing is the concept of a much elder man marrying a younger bride. The serial shows the elder brother, a widower, getting remarried (nothing wrong in that), except he seems to be marrying a girl who is half his age, and who is marrying him under duress; her parents are deep under debt and they are promised that their debt will be taken care of if they marry off their daughter, equivalent to selling off their daughter.
Now, she is married, and under a lot of stress. The serial also subtly depicts her horror at being forced into sex, where she has been forced to have sex with her much older husband (including where they show a mark on her neck, as well as her repugnance when he touches her). The serial promises to keep on showing more social evils - one can be sure that they will talk more about problems with widow remarriage, with bad treatment of women, and so on. My main issue is that the serial seems to be an effort to cash into an emotional issue, and not an attempt to convey how some of these social ills should be removed.

Videos of the serial Balika Vadhu (on Colors channel) from Youtube.

Balika Vadhu (Child Bride) on Colors channel

The various Hindi serials currently on air (and in the past) have focused on a variety of social ills, including such ever popular (and high drama generating) areas such as jealousy, widow remarriage, adultery, affairs, children out of wedlock, dowry, etc. Somehow, even though dowry is a heinous social ill (and causes immense problems to a lady whose in-laws are demanding), we have been hearing and reading about it so much that the concept of dowry being shown in a Hindi serial is not shocking anymore.
What was shocking to me was this serial being shown on Colors at 11 PM weekdays, right after Big Boss Season 2. Why this was shocking was because child marriage is wrong on so many levels and is highly illegal (and yet unfortunately still prevalent in some areas of the country); it causes immense physical and mental distress to the affected girl, displays a custom where the parents of the girl feel that she is a burden and she needs to be handed over to somebody else as soon as possible, and the trauma of both the young girl and boy to be put in such a responsibility is pretty bad.
So this is the reason why this serial affected me so much. The serial takes a young girl called Anandi, who is married at a very tender age to a young boy from a much richer family (with her own family pretty sure that this is the only way that her life can progress). In her 'in-laws' place, her in-laws are shown to be very nice, except for the matriarch of the house, the grandmother who keeps on finding fault, and administering punishment.
The relationship between the young couple is also very tender, since neither of them is aware of what a marriage actually means. They fight (and it would look cute, except for the fact that they are married and do not know what that means) all the time including about Anandi coming to live in her 'husbands' room. Eventually, after another strong scolding (and much crying), this young girl runs away and heads back to her parents house (badly traumatized by her experience with the grandmother), and yet the couple emotionally blackmail her to go back and beg forgiveness for whatever she has done.
Hindi channels need to have sense of responsibility; showing a child marriage like this in a normal setting can reassure those people who are also planning on getting their children married and make this seem normal; the channel is just after TRP'. The only concession that is made is a small line at the end of every episode that tries to present a message against this wrong practise.

Videos of the serial from Youtube (link)

Little girl crying miserably, begging for forgiveness even when she has not done anything

Kya Aap Panchvi Pass se Tez Hain - Not doing great

One was reading an article in the newspapers about how this much awaited show is running into problems with its sponsors; apparently the show is not drawing enough viewership and the sponsors are applying pressure to reform the format of the show. The show, even though based on an international show, 'Are (confirm)', has been modified to the Indian context, with a lot more celebrity power thrown in. Hence, even 2 ads of the show that I saw talking about some future episodes of the show had 2 more TV celebrities shown - as an example, one of the episodes had the 2 main leads of the drama 'Vidaai' appearing on the show along with most of the cast.
This is apparently something that the sponsors seem to be fulminating against; they believe that the show is focusing a bit extra on the star quotient (and these were minor TV stars, not big Bollywood stars who can be expected to lend more glamour to the show). This is also in contrast to the previous Kaun Banega Crorepati since the focus of the show remained the questions and not more about the celebrities. With a limited time format, and some focus on the star power, the show is losing out and just not generating the required viewership (although when the show was proposed, there was worry that the show will generate so much interest that the IPL matches going on at the same time - evening at 8 PM) would lose out on some of the viewership.
The worry for Star is that 30% of the episodes already have apparently been shot, and it would get difficult to rework the basic format of the show; and since a major Bollywood figure such as Shahrukh Khan is involved, re-shooting episodes would be very difficult.

Aladdin, Jaanbaaz Ek Jalwe Anek on Zee TV

Based on the famous story of Aladdin and his magical lamp (and produced by Applause Entertainment & Sagar Arts with some Computer Graphics - but not comparable to the best of CG that you see in movies), this is a serial that is full of drama. The story of Aladdin is taken from the Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Persian fables. The serial appears on Zee (started on November 16, 2007) and appears every Friday, Saturday and Sunday on 7:30 PM (prime time for children).

The show has new actors playing the prominent characters:
Mandar plays the 15 year old Aladdin
Nazea Hasan plays Princess Jasmin
Ranvijay Razdan plays Jafar
Arjun Dutt plays the Ginnie

The story of Aladdin is pretty familiar to a lot of people - Aladdin is a young boy whose parents were killed in his childhood by a wicked magician (remind anyone of Harry Potter?); he is brought up by his mother's sister and her husband, and is not exactly treated very well. His parents Zoya and Zahir were killed by the magician Jafar; now Jafar wants to get the magic lamp for his own needs, but the lamp is buried in a cave and the only person who can get the lamp has to be from a certain clan, bearing the mark of the sun, and the most important, has to have a pure soul, and Aladdin has all these hallmarks.
So Jafar tricks Aladdin to learn magic from him, and then get the lamp. Aladdin, with his companions, learns a lot, and manages to reach the cave based on his skills. He somehow manages to get the lamp, and escape the cave, and he has also learned that Jafar motives were evil, so he evades the magician. Now Aladdin has a magical carpet and the lamp, and slowly moves from adventure to adventure, till he meets the beautiful Princess Jasmine, but with Jafar always after him, he cannot stay long. What will Aladdin do ? How can he escape the magician ? Does he get the princess ?
Watch the serial to learn more.

Watch a video from the serial:

TV show Giant Robot: Real fun for kids

I am slowly going into nostalgia mode, and may evoke some memories in people who were kids when Doordarshan was the single channel on TV, and when there was a serial called 'Giant Robot' that would come on TV. Nowadays, there are such a lot of cartoon channels, but at that time, there was this show among the few that would be coming on TV which was of interest specifically to children (along with Spiderman, and a few others). From what I recall, it used to come in the late afternoon. This is actually a very old serial, which was created in Japan in the late 60's, became a craze in the US in the 70's and then was recycled here in India by Doordarshan in the 80's. But all this does not matter really, nobody cares whether this was recycled or not. There was the thrill of watching it, and it used to get tense when you had to go somewhere (parental pressure or something else unavoidable), and how am I going to be able to miss this episode, and wait for the next episode ?
When the time would come to watch it, all other activity would cease, including playing out and being with friends (I mean, you could still be with friends, but watching the TV for this cartoon).
Now I that remember it, you would not catch anybody of this generation dead watching it. It was not glitzy, the effects were not great, animation was no big deal, and the plot was laughable, but who cares. If you really want to read in details about Giant Robot, then refer to Wikipedia.
So what was it about? It was about this boy called Johnny Sokko who, through a complicated sequence of events, came into control of a giant robot that was capable of flying, and firing a large number of different types of weapons (I remember the laser that would come out of its eyes). Why does this boy need a robot ? Well, because ever since he got control of this robot (using his watch as a controller), he became a member of a group called the Unicorn.
Unicorn in turn was fighting to save the earth from the clutches of a group called the Gargoyle (commanded by an alien emperor called Guillotine). Gargoyle has a number of members, and are responsible for creating monsters that would rampage on earth.
If you want to watch some clips of Giant Robot, then watch it on YouTube
I wonder how many people were really interested in the story of this serial? I for one primarily watched it because
- It had a large robot that could fly and do a number of destructive things
- There was usually a battle involving some monster
- It had tension, with usually the robot managing to save things in the end

If you are interested in this series, you can buy them from Amazon: