Soch Nayi Serials

                                                            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.