Love on TV

TV REVIEW

Channel surfer

By

Randeep Wadehra

Osho had not reckoned with our TV soaps while asserting, “When love comes, it comes at its pinnacle. There is no other state of love, it is always the highest. There are no degrees of love… (It) is never less than the whole. A little love has no meaning. Either there is love or there is not.” Our entertainment channels depict love not only in varied hues and situations but also in varying degrees ranging from sublime to crass.

Last Friday (15 March), Parichay (Colors) came to a happy conclusion, making way for a new serial Gurbani. Parichay, among other things, dealt with the power of love – unintended though it was – Siddhi was supposed to marry Anand but his death triggers off events that lead to her marriage with Anand’s brother Kunal, who had lost his love and career to the shenanigans of DK Thakral. Siddhi, gradually, pulls Kunal back from the morass of low self-esteem; thus, making one ponder over love’s phantasmagorical hues. Love on television does not flower in impoverished dwellings. Poverty’s ugliness precludes any possibility of the blooming of such a delicate sentiment. Love among the impoverished is decorated with ‘aesthetic’ frills, Uttaran for instance; it needs to be nurtured with beautiful surroundings that only TV producers can apparently afford.

Not that there is no clash of classes; for example, Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon (Star Plus) is a love story featuring love-hate relationship between Khushi, a simple, small town girl, and Arnav, the big-time tycoon with all the attendant traits like ruthlessness and arrogance. Again, Balika Vadhu (Colors) is a multi-layered narrative wherein love between Anandi and Shiv stands out prominently. She, a village belle, is sarpanch and he, an urbane introvert, is IAS officer. He admires her wisdom, courage and progressive worldview; she respects him for being liberal minded and falls in love with him in installments. Which goes to prove that love is not normative — its followers make and observe their own norms. Shiv and Anandi’s love – more spiritual than pheromone induced – is an experience that heightens sensibilities. Ditto for Pavitra Rishta (Zee TV) wherein the love narrative has typical middleclass flavor, wherein Manav and Archana get married despite daunting obstacles, only to be separated later on; but fate’s vagaries fail to break the bond between them. Love demands sacrifices – something that not all can make. However, in Sony TV’s Bade Achhe Lagte Hain Priya does precisely that; she is unbelievably forgiving while taking back Ram Kapoor who has given away all his riches to his second wife Ayesha. Is love really such a feeling that numbs all senses, including commonsense? This would appear to be the case.

But there is another form of love, seasoned with hate and contempt as much as with mutual concern and adoration, which we witness in Madhubala (Colors). Indeed, it is a bemusing equation between the large hearted, forgiving, now-timid-now-bold Madhubala and the sadomasochist Rishabh Kundra. Is love real? Countless skeptics will trot out convincing arguments against the possible existence of real love. Like the US writer, Dorothy Parker, who comes up with this shard: “By the time you swear you’re his/ Shivering and sighing/ And he vows his passion is/ Infinite, undying —/ Lady, make a note of this: / One of you is lying.” The French dramatist, Jean Anouilh, however tries to assure us with "Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one arch-enemy — and that is life" – something, you witness in the unfolding dramas Savitri (Life OK) and Saraswatichandra (Star Plus).

In the pre-TV soap days, it used be love-after-first-fight, often after the couple had dashed against each other in a college’s corridor/lawn, and books had tumbled down from either’s hands. Now the LAFF has a variant – lasses tumbling off stools, stairs or stumbling against something invisible on plain ground, with hunks around to collect them in arms. In both the cases arguments ensue, which mysteriously morph into high voltage romance. Such is the capricious nature of love in television soaps.

Published in The Financial World dated 18 March, 2013