Soch Nayi Serials
Star Plus television channel has lived up to its tag line “ Rishta wahi,
soch nayi” (same relationship with its viewers, but new behind its programmes
and shows) in two of its serials Tamanna
and Dehleez that ended on Sunday. The
two serials are women-centric and both deal with the distrust between Hindus
and Muslims that cause riots and untold misery to innocent people belonging to
both religious communities.
Tamanna in English means wish or desire or craving that enlarges into passion or
boundless enthusiasm and strong devotion
with tireless diligence towards furtherance of a cause or an ideal or a goal. The serial presents a girl’s
passion for cricket that continues to absorb her even after she gets married
and becomes a mother. Hers is a genuine
passion which cannot be quelled by external forces of family and society.
Passion is like “ a mountain
stream; it admits of no impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward”.
The other serial, Dehleez meaning threshold (of a home or of pain or anything
else) is also woman centric about a young woman lawyer with a passion for
justice and moral rightness. The women
protagonists of the two serials share a passion for humanity that cannot be
rent by caste and religion. This is reflected in their zeal to bond Hindus and
Muslims as citizens of one nation.
The central action in Tamanna takes place in a small UP town of Bulandganj and that of
Dehleez in Delhi, the capital of India. Zara takes up her assignment as the
coach of a school cricket team in a small town where religious riots are a
common occurrence on the slightest provocation, real or imagined. It looks as
though the sparks are always waiting to be lit. Both the communities have
suffered grievous losses and the younger generation is thus drawn into the swirl
of communal hatred. It is ironic that while the Hindu boys and Muslim boys do
not play together as a team, the cricket bats and balls are manufactured by the
two communities who have had their share of fatality in the riots of
yesteryears. Zara uses cricket which is a team sport to make a united team of the
Hindu and Muslim boys. She succeeds in
uniting them and makes the younger generation go to town with the message of
harmony and peace. As the serial comes to an end, Bulandganj, that was divided
by religion for many years stands united
by cricket.
All through the different phases of her life as a young girl, a wife, a mother and
a committed cricketeer, Zara shows how to play cricket with a straight bat. While
coaching she plays special emphasis on fielding – which in cricket not only demands
alertness but a spontaneous action to contribute to the team’s success and to
cement the bond among the players.. Cricket is indeed a great leveler and Zara
shows how we should play the game of life like the game of cricket, fair and
square with the inspired slogan of one team, one dream.
Every actor in this serial has displayed
his/her histrionic potential to the full. All the actors exemplify the team spirit,
for everyone knows s/he is a part of the drama and his/her role is vital to the
success of the serial. This was best illustrated at the end by the inclusion of
a boy in crutches as the twelfth man, who at the crucial moment of the play
runs out the star batsman of the opposite side to give his team the victory.
Anuja Sathe who essays the stellar role of Zara displays immense passion both
for the game and for moral righteousness that impacts the rest of the team. She
hurls a bouncer at her autocratic, self centred husband for failing to respond
to her truthfulness, sincerity and altruism and decides to walk out on him.
When he tries to come back to her, only because he does not wish to be bowled
out by her, she throws a googly at him, asking him whether he is ready to sacrifice
his ambition and be a partner in her cricket journey.
Zara’s histrionic talent is at full display
when her young school team wins the inter-school tournament. No oratory, no spellbinding
dialogues but through gestures and facial
expression, she presents a simultaneity of multiple emotions of joy, surprise, relief and gratitude. When she
lets open the floodgate of emotions without a single word she reminds us of Helen Wiegel inBertolt Brecht’s Mother
Courage, who on seeing the dead body of her son screamed silently
, a scream indicative of "heart-rending vitality of all maternal
creatures Zara’s passion is her legacy and Bulandganj erupts
into passionate celebration of their young team’s victory. As she leaves the
small town, Hindus and Muslims come together to bid farewell as a tribute to her bringing brotherhood and camaraderie
between the two communities.
The second serial features a young woman from Chennai who
goes to Delhi to study and practice law. She stays with an affectionate
three-some Muslim family, the Jilanis- comprising father, mother and son- who
had been family friends for many years. Their college going son Azar and the
young lawyer, Swadeenatha, have a wonderful brother- sister affinity that is stronger than blood relationship. The plot revolves round a conspiracy hatched
by Iftikar Alam, a terrorist who befriends Asad as a Hindu young man to get his father’s permission to rent the
basement of their house. Asad discovers the heinous plot of the terrorist to
bomb blast three areas in Delhi, one of them targetting the wedding of Swadheenatha
to a bureaucrat. He passes on the information to the brother of Swadheenatha’s fiancé
who is a Police officer, belonging to Indian Police Service. Despite their
brave heroics, both Asad and the police officer are killed, the latter by the
terrorist and the former by police forces who mistake Asad as a terrorist and responsible for the murder
of the police officer. Circumstances point to the Jilanis as a part of the
terrorist group for harbouring Iftikar Alam(who calls himself Aravind Gupta) in
their basement. Asad’s father is jailed and awaits court hearing. Swadheenatha’s
entry into her husband’s family is halted at the threshold as she leaves to fight
the case on behalf of her foster family. The prosecution lawyer is her mother-in-
law, a legal luminary in Delhi.
The fight is for justice, for restoration of honour to a
family which had been vilified on the basis of its religion on circumstantial
evidence. The series is a courtroom drama,
based in Delhi,
which focuses on the bureaucracy of India, how the country works, and the
high-level politics that happens behind closed doors. Swadheenatha
exposes the planted evidence in Jilanis house and argues against inference
based on indirect evidence. She wins the case, frees Jilani and reveals the bravery of her
foster brother Asad who is later decorated with bravery award.
What is striking is not the court room drama but the courage
of Swadheenatha to fight for justice and truth, almost putting her marriage on
the rocks. One’s patriotism and love for his nation cannot be worn on religious
sleeves. Whether born into a Muslim or a Hindu family does not make one a
terrorist or a patriot. At core everyone has a sense of belonging to the
nation. Swadheenatha belonging to a south Indian Brahmin family develops a
strong bonding for the Jilanis that gives her the conviction that an Indian Muslim
is as much an Indian as an Indian Hindu. For her justice is more important than
her personal life and she stakes her marriage on her passion to find the truth and
restore justice to humanity. She sets foot on the dehleez of her husband’s home
after her triumph to establish truth and justice.
Tridha Choudhry as Swadheenatha is outstanding, though others
including her on- screen mother-in-law,Suhasini (played by Meghna Malik) are no
less in their theatrical talent. The passion and courage of conviction that Tridha displays equals the passion
of Zara in Tamanna. Tridha’s and
Anuja’s engaging fight for truth, justice, fairness, peace and harmony is central
to the survival of humanity. Hope Star
plus gives its viewers more serials with nayi
soch.
