Soapy Impact...:)

Has a TV soap ever inspired you?..... and that too when it is a daily soap!!
Well with a zillion TV channels trying to prove their mettle, the quality of serials has been deteriorating, thanks to Ekta Kapoor's revolutionary or should I say evolutionary mega serials.....well! Gonna are those days when every serial on Doordarshan was a gem! Even the simple chitrahaars and rangoolis were eagerly awaited. But days now, I switch on the TV, aimlessly surfing channels and endup seeing nothing completely! But among all this mess, offlate I've started watching a daily soap diligently and that has actually impacted me !

"Manthana" telecasted on a daily basis in ETV Kannada is a serial with brains! Its protagonists are mainly the females (NO!...not the Ekta Kapoor heroines) and have got a slight feminist angle to it. But looking at the problems women face in today's world, there is a necessity for every female to have a small degree of feminism in herself. The script is evidently a compilation of pragmatical and the rational problems faced by a woman in balancing her professional and personal lives.

Story goes something like this: A commissioner in the Income Tax Dept set out to do her duty honestly encounters tough resistance. A lady when young took to a thorny path, now cant think of heading back but struggles to reach the destination. A daughter whose family life has been anything but peaceful. A wife’s dilemma whether to back the son or the husband. Well these stories might be a common affair but the beauty of the serial is the simplicity in which these are portrayed. The script raises the problems like boulders but tactfully they are reduced to pebbles. It brings about the individuality in every person and no matter how close you are to a person, you have no right to humiliate that individualism. And when such an individualism is provoked, the person stands up straight and bites you back.

My favourite character in the serial is ShivShankarReddy, as an illiterate but a shrewd and a cunning businessman. For a debut in direction, Mr.Sethuram has done a fantastic job. The USP of this serial are the dialogues which are witty one-liners - concise and powerful.

It illustrates the fact that shortcuts to fame are shortlived and it defines practicality in simple terms…….... listen to your heart but follow your mind because your heart can only feel and not think!..........:)