Indian Soap Opera - Features

Features

Indian serials are often stereotypical, both in storylines and in characters. The ideals of the quintessential Indian family are often given fanatical attention to, which lines being written in grand, melodramatic tones, drawing in references to events in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the typical Indian woman, and other similar themes. Balaji Telefilms has often been frowned at for repeating the same essential storylines with different characters and sets (altering the sequence of events and their intensity) to create more and more serials.

One of the first serials created by the banner was Itihaas whose theme music is now the banner music of Balaji Telefilms, then Hum Paanch and later the third series Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (literally, Because even the Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law), the story of the fictional industrialist family Virani, the apple-of-their-eye son Mihir, and their loyal and subservient (i.e., quintessential) daughter-in-law, Tulsi, his wife. An almost immediate release was another serial called Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, also a story about an industrialist family—albeit, the “Aggarwals”—also about the apple-of-their-eye son—this time, “Om”, later in the series the lives of all the brothers of the families and their wives were dealt with extensively—and yet again, their loyal and subservient daughter-in-law, “Parvati.” The storylines are loosely parallel, though the writers continually attempt to “shock” their audiences with sex, extramarital affairs, murders, conspiracies, and kidnappings—in all serials, though at different points in time. A standard feature now is the 20-year-jump, where one epoch in the series ends at a stalemate and continues in the next episode with all the characters and surroundings twenty years older, the effects of ageing being shown by white dye in strands in the hair of the women of the family, and not-so-subtle hints of grey around the gentlemen’s moustaches and sideboards.

Another slightly unreal aspect of the Indian serial is plastic surgery. A typical scenario is one wherein an accident happens to one of the protagonists, with him/her waking up in hospital with a new face, one that is most often the result of the antagonist scheming with an evil plastic surgeon who creates an entirely new face for the hapless hero(ine). The protagonist invariably become vulnerable to the antagonist’s schemes, and this, along with the 20-year-jump, helps create scenarios such as a missing darling son of the family now being one “converted” to one of the enemy camp, with further clichéd themes as the Indian Mother’s Yearning for her Son helping to create about a month’s worth of material, which inevitably ends in a reunion scene with lots of happy tears. One of this example is in Kasamh Se when Meera burns Bani in the April episode.

Dialogue in Indian serials, in addition to being largely melodramatic and filled with historical and religious references, is widely thought lacking. If seen very carefully, one would notice that there is, in fact, little or no conversation that takes place during the 30-odd minutes of a typical Indian soap opera’s episode. Actors’ lines in scenes are often delivered one large monologue at a time (even longer in scenes of “conflict” between the protagonist(s) and the antagonist(s)), there are often dance scenes based on exactly the same encountered in the parent film of the song (this being less parody and more of a filler, often seen during idle amorous fantasies of the “goof” of the cast), and features elaborate sound effects, which are actually repeated in other serials which are under the same banner.

For example, female antagonists often enter the room with screeching cat noises being played in the background, perhaps an allusion to the character’s invariable cattiness; though often antagonists that are well-known and widely-spurned by the TV-seeing public often have their distinctive entrance sound effects: in the serial Kasautii Zindagii Kay (to be correctly read as Kasauti Zindagi Ki, but throughout the serial it was never thought to be corrected), whenever the character ‘Komolika’, began to scheme and soliloquise and/or entered a room, a playful, almost vampish strain of gaudy music was played to an amorous play of her name. This was keeping in with the effect her heavy makeup, thick, bristly fake eyelashes, and garish contact lenses portrayed the character as.

Male antagonists that are young often have Indianised strains of rather obscure hip-hop songs working for them in the background, and those that are older often have deeply resonating kettle drums booming in the background.

The camera often spins wildly from character to character during scenes in which shocking news is revealed, shaking vigorously when a character faints, and showing the same slap hitting the same cheek thrice during a confrontation, keeping in sync with the overall melodramatic touch most of the serials prefer to incorporate.

Indian serials first began with the introduction of the television set in Indian homes: the first soap opera on the State-run channel, Doordarshan (the only television channel that existed at that point in time), was Hum Log, a story of a family comprising three generations. It was urban, it was middle-class, and it was new, and till today, it, along with Buniyaad, is considered among the best-made Indian serials to be seen by an Indian audience.

In the “old” Star TV channel of the Star Network, certain serials like Saans and Kora Kagaz broke the mould and gained artistic as well as commercial success; serials on Zee TV like Tara and Banegi Apni Baat (which featured among the early work of renowned Hindi/Tamil actor R. Madhavan), too, were of the same privileged fate.