The Real Woman in Hindi TV
“I think people accepted characters like mine because we are dealing with real issues in rural settings that make it more believable,” says Meghna Malik, who plays the popular character of Ammaji in Color’s Na Aana Is Des Laado, a soap on female infanticide. While her character is villainous, Malik says, the audience accept her because “They want more than just the lift of the eyebrow. They want us to be cunning not just in words but in action.” And in the context of issues such as child marriage or infanticide, the character’s hard hitting antics fit in.
Figuring out how much change is acceptable wasn’t easy. Yardi says viewers can often predict what twist a soap may take, but they don’t want to. “They want to be surprised,” and Yardi’s task is to surprise them without pushing the boundaries enough that they’re turned off.
For instance, once when she killed a character on the popular show Baalika Vadhu, ratings went sky high and then plummeted. Audience research showed viewers sympathised with the dead character’s widow and didn’t want to see so much sadness in her life. Yardi quickly introduced a lighter character to bring some humour and fun into to the show.
The Zee Formula
Zee isn’t fussed about defining its audience sharply. It continues to target middle-class women in both urban and rural India. But there’s one distinct change: They reckon their serials and soaps must clearly reflect changing aspirations. “For instance, in the 90s, film and TV serials were centred on the daily struggle of life to make two ends meet. The saas-bahu serials, family feuds and joint family issues followed next. The soaps sold dreams and aspirations of big palatial houses and rich families,” says Ashish Golwankar, head of non-fiction programming, Zee TV. Once the post-liberalisation generation had money in their pocket, they were not concerned with making two ends meet. The focus, therefore, began to shift towards higher order issues: How to improve society rather than narrowly focus on their own lives and lifestyles.
That meant significantly changing production values as well. “Earlier, the treatment on our shows was loud. The accent was on good clothes, big sets and heavy makeup,” says Sukesh Motwani, head, fiction programming, Zee TV. “But lately, the viewer has evolved to the extent that they are ready to look at real settings, ready to accept characters with shades of grey. The emphasis is on directing a scene well, better performances and authentic lines. Even settings have to be authentic,” he says.
Offering variety is the name of the game. Nitin Vaidya, COO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) says the audiences are enjoying watching different genres. So, every half hour slot in its 8- 11 prime time has a different kind of show from historical to soap to reality shows. That’s why Balaji’s Ekta Kapoor calls Zee the “Gujarati thali” of GECs. There’s one thread that ties shows from a historical show Jhansi ki Rani to the new soap called Mera Naam Karegi Roshan: He says their shows somewhat tend to address social issues and feature women fighting for self-esteem.
Zee’s latest show, Mera Naam Karegi Roshan is about a father who prefers his daughter over his sons to light his funeral pyre because he feels she is a more worthy inheritor of his legacy.
It’s a Sony
TV is like a serpent. You have to shed your skin every couple of months,” says Ajay Bhalwankar, head of programming at Sony Entertainment Television. Before the IPL, Sony pushed ahead its second prime time programming in a year, both of which reflected its image as a young, hip, progressive and urban channel. This time Yashraj Films made soaps for them.
These shows looked and felt like glossy, expensive Bollywood films. They included an action packed thriller, a super natural show, a romantic comedy and Mahi Way, a sitcom about a plump young woman’s struggle with weight, relationships, family and work.
Although the shows have not yet had wide appeal, they have brought a very different kind of woman in to Indian homes. Mahi goes on weekend trips with a man she is not in a relationship but would like to.
Sony’s Bhalwankar says they have had such a positioning all the while and talks about a non-Yashraj show where the lead character is from a smaller town but fights society and later becomes a politician. “Any woman, if she is inspiring, we are interested in her,” he says. “Inspiration is very important because we will create shows for the evolving woman of
this country.”
So far, the new positioning has opened the landscape up in terms of taking viewers to new places and the women that fit in to that context. And it appeals to audiences in different parts of the country, where regional GECs are gaining ground. For instance, Balaji’s Kapoor says Star is strong in Gujarat and Maharashtra, Colors in North India, Sony is stronger in metros and Zee in smaller towns.
Color’s Baalika Vadhu was set in Rajasthan to connect with a market that is seldom represented in prime-time soaps. The strategy seems to have worked well so far.
Which only proves, there is no one way to define a woman — she continues to remain an amorphous entity that defies definitions.
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