Doordarshan Nostalgia: Nukkad: Streetlife

There are times when you get reminded of serials that one watched a long time ago, at a time when Doordarshan was the only channel in town and the only entertainment that you got on TV were the serials and Chitrahaar that Doordarshan would dish out.
One such very popular serial of the Doordarshan time was called 'Nukkad'. What does Nukkad mean ? It literally means the neighborhood, and was all about the characters who would live in the neighborhood or a locality (in the case of the serial, it was a locality of people that were not well-off by any means, in fact, they were poor). The idea of the serial was to show their life, and for many of us, it was a good awakening to see how people separate from us lived, what were their hopes and aspirations, and most of all, they emotions, their ambitions, and their despair.
The serial was directed by Saeed Mirza, and starred such actors such as Dilip Dhawan as Guru (Electrician), Avtar Gill as Kadar Bhai (Hotelier), Sameer Khakar as the drunkard Khopdi, Javed Khan as the barber, Pavan Malhotra as the cycle repair guy (Hari), Rama Vij as the wise teacher, Suresh Chatwal as Chotu, and many others.
So you had stories related to their everyday life and interactions, and you had stories about their attempts to do something like when Hari attempts to set a world record for the longest continuous time cycling and fails when very close, and another time when they play a cricket match and win with a shot from the most unlikely of sources.

Thodi Si Zameen, Thoda Aasman

You can think of this show as the one that caused the split between Smriti Irani and Ekta Kapoor. No matter what they might say publicly, there is an incredible amount of buzz that it was the decision of Smriti Irani to turn producer and launch this serial (Thodi Si Zamee, Thoda Aasman) and Viruddh that caused the split between them. Initially Ekta was the co-producer of this show, but that soon stopped. And then the story of Kyunki Saas Bhi Bahu Thi was changed to accomodate a plastic surgery for Tulsi so that Smriti Irani could move away from the character.
Was this serial good enough that Smriti Irani gave up Kyunki... ? I would say no. Viruddh is far more powerful, this serial is much tamer than I thought it would be. The storyline is somewhat different from the others, although you have the familiar themes a rich family that covets the property (land) of poor people, of a conniving brother-in-law who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and of an autocractic mother-in-law who wants to get it all, and will not bear anybody in the household defying her.
Smriti Irani plays the role of Uma, a young girl/woman living in a slum cluster, where the people were dependent on a mill that has shut down. She is again more of an ideal woman, taking care of her family, and when married to Sudhanshu Jajodia (Kiran Karmarkar), who is a mentally unbalanced person. She takes care of him in the household after the marriage, over the schemes and bullying of her mother-in-law and brother-in-law Dushyant (Harsh Chayya). She is supported by her younger sister-in-law, Dushyant's wife who does not like the moral character of Dushyant. The Jajodia's want to get the slum land vacated, and Uma wants to resist this at all costs, as she does not want to make the people living their homeless.
The serials has all the usual twists and turns, although in this serial people do not casually mention loaning or borrowing Rs. 100 crores, but somehow the serial never catches on in terms of excitement. You get to see the pain, the adversity, but I don't think it is easy to identify with the character played by Uma. There are some unrealistic scenes such as the one where she is accused of having an affair with a helpful lawyer, and her mother does not believe her innocence.
And in twists, the lawyer has been murdered, and apparently killed by a number of people; further, Uma's husband has apparently turned against her, he wants to protect the Jajodia family name. Seems a bit ungrateful to give up a wife who has stood by you in thick and thin, but then that's a serial where there has to be masala added. The serial comes on Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 PM on Star. I would not be surprised if it does not have good TRP's.

Ek chabhi hain padose mein - middle class angst

This serial is a vastly under-rated serial. Appearing on Star Plus every Saturday at 10 PM, it is a weekly serial appearing once in the entire week, and very easy to miss. Only dedicated serial watchers or those who watch mostly Star Plus on a regular basis will actually catch this serial.
I consider this serial to be an inheritor of Nukkad, in the sense that this serial takes a middle class neighbourhood of a town called Colonelgunj and spins the serial around regular short-story like approaches. The characters in this story are getting more finely delineated, and you get to see characters being more finely defined. It is vastly different from the saas-bahu kind of serials.
I initially found this serial somewhat grating, especially with the focus on how a the neighbourhood takes an interest in what is going on in the house. The initial story was about a person coming from abroad to get his father and sell the house, and how the entire neighbourhood did not like this whole process. With a new generation in metros not very appreciative of neighbour poking their nose in their families, and with families becoming more nuclear, the concept of neighbourhood sharing is almost non-existent (in the large metros, and increasingly, in smaller cities).
Quite a lot of the people involved in the serial seem new, with the exception of Varun Badola (playing Sandeep, a character looked up and trusted by everybody). Other main character is Urmi who plays a girl deeply in love with Sandeep, but unable to take the courage to directly tell him about her feelings. This romance is implicit, but unstated, although her friends know about her feelings.
There are a fair number of other characters, but one set of characters who remain the focus of every episode is the set of 4 boys, essentially good for nothings. They play the whole day and roam around the neighbourhood, not bad characters, but the despair of their parents because they do not seem to be capable of making a mark for themselves.
Some of the plots covered in this serial so far show the serial to be sensitive, such as the old lady wanting to give her secondary exams (that she never gave) and how her son and husband were not encouraging, about the Muslim girl who gets picked for an audition, but somehow does not have the talent to clear the audition, and so on. All seemingly middle-aged characters. In the end, it would seem to me that this serial has the potential to continue for a fair amount of time, but somehow the spark is missing that would make this serial a super-hit.