Did you cry with Aamir or smirk about the glycerine?

Did you cry with Aamir Khan last Sunday? Or did you smirk along with the sceptics? The younger generation, always spooked about overt emotionality and definitely not into crying over anything, could only react with scorn. “It was all about the power of glycerine,” a young one insisted with a strange kind of anger towards the show and its host. The other one could not get over the preach mode that Aamir usually gets besotted with.

Still others felt there was nothing new in the show, that subjects like female foeticide can be Googled to lakhs and lakhs of articles which say much more than what Aamir did in the 90 minutes that he splashed the small screen on “aapka Bharat” time. A band of arguers sought an explanation about why the star fell short of exposing the names and clinics of doctors and the in-laws who had forced six abortions in eight years on a hapless housewife from Gujarat. Some vociferously argued that the show would have been a flat-out but for Aamir Khan’s star power.

In their respective zones, all arguments sound legit and true to their opinions. But the good thing about all this talk (not to mention the trending stories which glutted the web) was that Satyamev Jayate was no masala show, nowhere near prime time, away from the “kitsch that sells” — and yet almost all age groups sat up on a Sunday morning and saw it through its rather elongated timespan of 90 minutes. The aunties and uncles did, so did their children and grandchildren. There were discussions, arguments and debate over Satyamev Jayate and its content. It has been a long time since any show on television has created so much buzz.

Aamir’s promised off-set visit to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to get a sting operation fast-tracked in courts kept the TV talk alive. But will Gehlot have any honest intention in suddenly dealing with a scourge that has dogged his State for so long right under his and other Chief Minister’s respective noses? Will a fast-track court really get to the bottom of the problem? Will Aamir and his first-time TV effort sustain the much hyped inaugural? Will the show, as promised, step out of the TV screens to make a real difference to society. Will Aamir’s efforts to generate massive public opinion to fly a change be successful?

These are questions that will get you answers by and by — as your Sundays with Aamir progress. Till then, one must admit that Aamir has been courageous in his choice and has opted to use his star power in a meaningful way. His deliberate intention to not tag sensationalism to a serious issue was laudable. His research into the topic was in-depth. Like, it was stunning to know that female foeticide was born out of an AIIMS study recommending it in the days of population explosion and how when the Government went in to rectify the mistake of implementing this 1970s study, ultrasounds had already arrived like monsters out of control.

How skillfully potent Aamir will be in the coming episodes, how much will he be able to touch the emotional chord of his viewers, how honest the show will be to its social activism outside of the small screen are some of the factors that will determine where Satyamev Jayate goes from the high pedestal perch it has been given, thanks to its association with a star who has, from his chocolate boy papa kehte hain days, has grown to be a daddy of good cinema, not to mention a czar of hatke publicity.

Meanwhile, the Khan will have to deal with brickbats along with the bouquets. Here is one that was a much talked about Facebook status message a day after Satyamev Jayate debuted. It asked: “Will Aamir Khan please do an episode on the plight of hapless housewives being unceremoniously dumped by their successful husbands for no fault of theirs and after more than a decade of marriage?” This may be below the belt but the thing with social activism is that it demands an impossible veneer of correctness from its prime propeller.

Badey bad lagte hain

While on TV, it is heartbreak happening in the soap dish at prime-time. Ekta Kapoor’s potent vehicle of romance, I am told, is to take a five-year leap. I would say that would be the biggest derailment in couch potato memory in a long time. Ekta, after all the saas-bahu saga she put us through, had come with a lot of promise with this middle-aged romance and got all the applause for getting reformed. On her part, she had promised that Badey Achhey Lagte Hain would never stray from its core area — of showcasing the languid romance between Ram and Priya.

It goes to the show’s good content that it has become a blockbuster despite not being a traditional romance on TV. Ram Kapoor is fat and cussed; Priya is old and preachy. Yet, they are the top pair on Indian television.

It will be cruel on the part of Balaji Telefilms that even before the viewers have had a whiff of Ram and Priya’s growing relationship (which I must admit the script-writer has beautifully portrayed till now), she has left him and will be returning with a five-year-old child very soon. And she has left him on a particularly bogus premise, that too at a time that she could have won the battle against her evil mom-in-law. At least the promo for the apparent leap suggests that. Hope Ekta knows that this will spell doom for BALH which was going fine till now. Hope someone somewhere in Balaji Telefilms realises this and brings this sizzling soap back on track before it is too late.

Source: Published in The Sunday Pioneer, 13 May 2012