DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

About one week ago, Karan Johar introduced us to a new divinity – Ekta Mata of Televisionland. You may know her as the “Queen of Primetime”, Ekta Kapoor. She was accompanied by three of her leading toadies acolytes actors: a fawning Ronit Roy, a bloated Ram Kapoor and some negative space called Hiten Tejwani.

If you don’t know who any of these people are then let me put it this way: Kapoor is the one-woman force that propels most of the original Hindi-language programming on the Rupert Murdoch-owned Star TV. And the three men with her constitute what Johar (who produces and hosts one of the few, and very valuable, original shows on the English-language sister concern, Star World) calls the “hotties of Indian television”. They play Mihir from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Jay from Kasamh Se (the inexplicable ‘h’ is deliberate) and Karan from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, respectively.

As a cynical being I never sit down to watch Koffee without expecting the corn quotient to shoot through the roof but the touching tale of Mother Ekta, the devi who singlehandedly feeds the starving masses of Televisionland, was a little more than even I could take.

To put things in perspective, Kapoor is a hardworking young woman who made full use of every God-given opportunity. These included an actor father who managed to keep working through the notorious 1980s when Bollywood stars of the 1970s were dropping by the wayside like flies, a fair amount of money and an innate tenacity that nobody fails to mention when they talk about her. This was a lady who knew what she wanted and struck out for it, no holds barred.

Additionally, she was in the right place (Mumbai) at the right time (the 90s) and she chose the right field (television). Talent, connections, hard work and luck – she had all the ingredients for tinseltown success and she made them all count. If reports are true, she runs a tight ship and doesn’t brook any nonsense. She’s a shark who’ll eat competitive guppies for a cocktail snack and won’t apologize for it either because that’s the way it rolls in her part of town. More power to her.

But then she had this to say about her critics:

This charge of elitism against her critics is not only ridiculous but it’s also arrogant. First of all, it’s not just the Malabar Hill crowd that has a problem with the quality of her company’s work. Perhaps she ought to put down her copy of Filmfare and widen her reading material a trifle? I distinctly remember quite a few other publications running stories about how much the “masses” can’t stand the K-laden crap that her company, Balaji Productions, has been churning out.

If you don’t like or can’t take criticism then go ahead and take the route that so many of her colleagues in the movie industry (including good friend and host, Johar) take – namely, that they are above criticism. It might be highhanded but at least it retains a modicum of the truth. They think they are above criticism or that criticism doesn’t matter to them because what they’re doing works for them and as long as the money’s pouring in, they feel perfectly entitled to overlook the outraged cries of the little people.

Alternatively, Kapoor might try expanding her circle of friends. In the “real India” that she claims to know so much about, people don’t live in palatial bungalows and toss about Ambani amounts of money like it was pocket change. Neither do people magically live to multiple centuries of age, discover doppelgangers who kidnap them for invariably nefarious purposes, marry as and when convenient to whoever it is that catches their fancy or, indeed, play ducks and drakes with the law with complete impunity. If you’re going to base your argument on “real India”, then first go for “real”, then try for “India”.

As for those “upper strata” women, who Kapoor believes form the crux of the criticism headed her away – perhaps their problem is that the typical Balaji show is completely confused in terms of narrative. Given that most of her shows feature families dabbling in the hundreds of crores a year range, it is not beyond belief that the women on Malabar Hill whose families actually bank hundreds of crores a year will have something to say about how they’re portrayed on TV.

Personally, most troubling of all was the indirect implication of her Malabar-Hill-women-want-something-creative remark: am I supposed to understand that the women in, say, Dharavi are satisfied with less because creativity is too high falutin’ for the masses? Condescension masked as championship, just brilliant.

Newsflash, sweetheart: this is 21st century India. The 1980s with its overt disdain for masala is long over. These are the days when Brand Bollywood is all about the masses. As a member of Bollywood whether as the daughter of a star, the sister of an actor or the producer of movies and TV shows, Kapoor should know better than most that there is an argument for well written masala.

If nobody else, then the writing duo of Salim Javed have proven to us over the years that a well written story, no matter how implausible, will always work when performed well. If Kapoor could just bear to look away from all the snooty friends she wants to impress, she might notice that the so-called regressive attitudes of her shows is merely the tip of a larger, structural defect.

Fact is, Balaji’s problems are manifold – slipshod writing, shoddy production values, terrible direction and a top heavy organization. And most importantly, and most unfortunately, influence as market leader.

Indian television is still in its Wild West phase in terms of regulations, format and industry standards. It is natural, therefore, that people just follow the “what works” model of business. You’ve seen this before: in the 1980s, this was the model assiduously followed by the movie industry… and we all know how well that turned out.

In such a scenario, Balaji is in a unique position to mould the nature of Indian TV and they’re wasting their time on recycling drawn out, dumbed down versions of Karan Johar (Kapoor’s favorite director) movies. As a digression, it is worth pointing out that Kapoor is an avowed fan of Johar whose greatest influence was Aditya Chopra who in turn is an avid follower of Sooraj Barjatya. So basically, what we’re seeing on TV everyday is a much filtered, bastardized version of the Barjatya POV. This was probably the most depressing realization I’ve ever had as a TV addict.

It’s all very well for Kapoor to say, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” It sounds really cool and witty… for about two seconds. But the reality is, as Kapoor herself pointed out a little later in the program, television is a medium naturally geared towards competition and she works tremendously hard to counter any and all of it. Right now her favored technique is to shake up the serials with a time jump or two, an escalating conflict, the introduction of a new character, etc. How long can you do that before the audience becomes jaded? It’s already happening.

But imagine a world in which the dailies weren’t staple fare. Say you have a weekly series that shows about 26 shows a year – this not only allows the actors to have a life of their own in the period that a show is on hiatus but also means that you can have regular schedules for reality based programming. Instead of new shows being programmed all higgledy-piggledy as and when they fit around existing shows, there’d be some sort of order.

This is, of course, the American model. I’m not saying we need to follow that. But some sort of order would be welcome. Kapoor says she met the head of 20th Century Fox when that lady came down to Bombay and the two bonded over production hassles (ironic because most of their television programming airs on the Fox Network, the one with the most confused scheduling of all networks in the States). There was also talk of some sort of tie up between the two organizations.

Given that Kapoor says she impressed her counterpart by showing how quickly the Indian crews worked as opposed to the American ones, perhaps they could both learn from each other. She could teach the Americans how to move their butt and they could teach her how to plan a hiatus.

The big problem with the hiatus model, of course, is whether people will tune back in. And that depends on the cast and crew. So I guess you’d have to overhaul the whole shebang. And that would make this TV addict happy enough to say, “Ekta Mata ki jai!”