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Tag: Naagin

  • Snakes and daayans are not regressive, till they are shown in a believable context and propped up as superstitions, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Naagin Nazar…

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The season of supernatural fantasy thrillers is back. Naagin’s third season has blossomed since its launch a few weeks ago. Last week, Star Plus launched its daily Nazar, which opened to very good response, rating at near-breakout levels for its daily 11pm slot, contributing to the channel’s top position in Urban HSM for the week. There are other weekend shows in the category too, like Qayamat Ki Raat (Star Plus), Kaun Hai (Colors) and Fear Files (Zee TV).

     

    In a case of glaring over-simplification, many media observers consider all fiction, including these supernatural shows, as one monolithic mass. Naagin and ‘saas-bahu’ serials are spoken of as a unit, often in the context of describing what plagues Indian television.

     

    Daily soaps of the family drama variety have had their fair share of issues over the last 3-4 years, and enough and more has been written about them here. But the clubbing of finite-length, fast-paced supernatural fantasy thrillers with family dramas that are supposed to be based on ‘real’ characters is a deeply uninformed view. It also has an element of inbuilt bias, whereby snakes and supernatural creatures are considered too regressive to deserve a place on national television in today’s day and age.

     

    I find these arguments flawed, even bizarre. Questioning the legitimacy of a show like Naagin or Nazar is questioning the entire fantasy genre itself. A genre that’s hugely popular worldwide, including in Hollywood, is branded regressive here, because the constituting elements are based on Indian mythology, which almost definitionally has elements of faith, even superstition, built in.

     

    A force-fitted fantasy track in a well-meaning family drama deserves this accusation. Inclusion of naagins, daayansand makkhisin serials that promised real, emotional relationships are gimmicks that may have given short-term results, but have unquestionably damaged the viewer reputation of the shows and the channels in question over time.

     

    But when you make a supernatural show, you make a supernatural show. You are not promising deep emotional layering, social change or mature handling of relationships. You are promising some unadulterated fun that’s based on the sound principle that a lot of entertainment is meant to serve one primary purpose: to help the audience destress and escape away from the drudgery of his/ her reality.

     

    Each genre comes with its own sets of rules and viewer norms. It’s the context that determines what’s regressive and what’s not. To apply the rules of contemporary social construct to supernatural fantasy thrillers is like burdening Virat Kohli with the job crisis in the country.

     

    The same fallacy was on display after the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’sPadmaavat earlier this year, where the jauhar act in the finale was criticized for its glorification of a custom that rightly had no place in modern society. But Padmaavat is not based in 2018. It’s a (questionable) tale from our history, based on an epic poem. Strip the film of its context and a jauhar sequence, glorified or not, will be hugely problematic. But ignore the context and you will lose the idea itself.

     

    Supernatural fantasy thrillers offer a dose of entertainment that GEC viewers have been robbed of over the last couple of years, when they had to rely on non-fiction shows to do the job. If this is what the category needs to make a slow comeback, so be it. Of course, there’s the danger of me-too versions popping up every other week, but the audiences will take care of that, by rejecting the ones that have nothing original to say.

     

    Let it be said again. Snakes and daayans are not regressive, till they are shown in a believable context and propped up as superstitions. In a fantasy world, they have only one purpose of existence. Entertainment.

     

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor's much-read view on the gamechanging shows of the year kicks off our Lookback 2016 series

    Top 5 “Gamechangers” on Hindi GECs in 2016

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    This Top 5 yearender piece has been a regular feature on this column since 2013. (Links to previous articles: 2015, 2014, 2013). However, there has been one important change since 2015. The word “gamechanger” seemed too liberal to use for the 2015 list, and needed the quotation marks around it to qualify the liberal usage. I had secretly hoped at that time that this qualifier won’t be required at the end of 2016. But no such luck.

     

    It has been a fairly uninspiring year on the content front, and hence game-changers continues to be a liberal word to use. That being qualified, here’s the list of the five Hindi GEC shows that stood out this year, for the impact they managed to have on the category:

    5.  Diya Aur Baati Hum

    The Star Plus show features in this list for one specific reason – Star Plus’ bold move to end the show this year. Diya Aur Baati Hum wrapped up on September 10, after a five-year run that saw a glorious period of at least three years. Like many other shows, the channel could have dragged this one for another 2-3 years, even more. It would have understandably been a tough call to take. But wisdom prevailed. Colors’ Balika Vadhu also ended this year, after an eight-year run. Hope there’s a trend being set here, slowly but surely.

     

    4.  Kumkum Bhagya

    Kumkum Bhagya finished two years in April (though it seems like it has been on-air for ages). Through the year, the show single-handedly kept Zee TV afloat, even as the channel struggled to retain its No. 3 spot in the second half of the year. There’s a certain storytelling style that Balaji Telefilms has mastered, and Kumkum Bhagya’s consistent performance is yet another outcome of that.

     

    3. Naagin & Naagin 2

    Naagin had topped this list at the end of 2015. The first season ended on a high in June, and the second season has worked equally well since its October launch. Treated like a true sequel, with characters and story being taken forward 25 years from where the first season ended, Naagin 2 continued to rely upon the tropes that worked for the first season – dramatic storytelling, glamorous cast, deft special effects (at least by Indian television standards) and most importantly, a sense of urgency and pace that’s unmatched in the category by far.

     

    2. Shakti

    This post-IPL launch on Colors had one of the more intriguing campaigns in recent times, playing on a “sach” that would eventually be revealed several weeks later. With a eunuch (kinnar) as its lead protagonist, Shakti managed to create differentiation with social relevance. That, combined with smart storytelling that made the most of every dramatic moment, ensured that Shakti quickly rose to the top of the GEC fiction charts, in turn helping Colors usurp Star Plus at the No. 1 position, especially with Naagin also on-air.

     

    Will Shakti have an extended run over 2017-18? Only time will tell. But in a year of lacklustre weekday fiction launches, Shakti stood out as a genuine exception.

    1. The Kapil Sharma Show

    He had ruled the weekends for more than two years before parting ways with Colors. Yet, when he made a comeback with The Kapil Sharma Show on Sony in April this year, there was much scepticism about how the show would fare. There would be format fatigue after all, and Comedy Nights With Kapil didn’t exactly end on a high on Colors.

     

    But those fears, as it turned out, were unfounded. The Kapil Sharma Show grew from strength to strength during the year, acquiring the same cult status, if not even higher, that the predecessor show on Colors enjoyed. That Kapil Sharma did not have a feature film distraction during this year helped. As did the superbly conceived and performed character of Dr Mashoor Gulati.

     

    The Kapil Sharma Show took Sony to the No. 3 spot by the last quarter of the year. And unless Sharma messes it up with another feature film roadblock, 2017 is set to be a big year for this show.

     

  • Most new launches failed to get going in the year, many of them wrapping up even before the year ends, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Top 5 “Gamechangers” on Hindi GECs in 2015

     

     

    2015 has been an odd year for Hindi GECs. While long-running hits like Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, Saath Nibhana Saathiya, Kumkum Bhagya, Diya Aur Baati Hum and Sasural Simar Ka continued to dominate, most new launches failed to get going, many of them wrapping up even before the year ends.

     

    While the list of Top 5 gamechanger shows of the year for 2013 had a lot more variety, the 2014 list was a bit of a stretch, in the absence of any real impact properties besides Yeh Hai Mohabbatein. The 2015 list below has a peculiar problem of its own – It relies heavily on one genre (mytho-historical) which in not exactly on the ascendancy. The 2015 list lacks conventional daily soaps, where long-running shows have towered over new launches in a hopelessly one-sided battle that the former have been winning for over three years now.

     

    5. Siya Ke Ram: Star Plus’ Siya Ke Ram makes it to this list largely for being a well-managed launch that ensured that the show opened very well. The interpretation of Ramayan is interesting, but the show lacks that operatic feel Mahabharat on the same channel had. Perhaps we would see more of it as the story progresses. Much else Star Plus launched this year did not work, but Siya Ke Ram has the ability to reverse that as it enters its third month soon.

     

    4.Sankatmochan Mahabali Hanuman: It’s perhaps the least-talked-about GEC success story of the year. On a platform where a regular fiction show struggles to cross 0.3 TVR, Hanuman has been clocking 1.5+ TVR consistently, with time-spent numbers at par with category leaders like Diya Aur Baati Hum and Kumkum Bhagya. The success of Hanuman, albeit limited by its platform’s current potential, proves yet again that viewers will discover engaging content, however cluttered the environment is.

     

    3. Chakravartin Ashok Samrat: The Colors show completes the hat-trick of mytho-historical shows on this list. The show has been on-air for about a year and perhaps past its peak too. But Ashoka has been the pillar (no pun intended) around which Colors built its strong challenger position to Star Plus during this year, overtaking it with great regularity in recent weeks. It also clearly separated Colors as being a variety-centric family platform, in contrast with Star Plus’ female-targeted fiction positioning.

     

    2. Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain: &TV may have taken its time to find its feet, but its driver show, the modestly-mounted but sharply-written comedy Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hain, has managed to find an audience on its own. Fiction comedy is perhaps the most difficult genre to create formulaic hits in, given that a lot depends on performances and consistency of writing, episode after episode. This somewhat-saucy comedy has ensured &TV enters 2016 with at least one winner on hand.

     

    1. Naagin: There’s one thing common to this list in 2013-15: The winner stood head and shoulders above the rest. It was Comedy Nights With Kapil in 2013 and Yeh Hai Mohabbatein in 2014. This year, the extent of Naagin’s success has taken everyone by surprise.

     

    While those two list-toppers grew from modest beginnings to positions of strength, Naagin was a runaway hit, opening at levels most hit shows aspire to peak at, and growing further from there.

     

    Naagin deserves credit for infusing zest in an oft-told story, and upping the level of visual treatment and histrionics. But it’s also further proof of the Indian obsession with all things supernatural. And how that Naagin has hit the mark, watch out for more supernatural and creature stuff in 2016. You have been warned.