Hunt for the missing persons

ANITA GHARAL steps out of her house to buy vegetables ... she never comes back

Young Floyd Almeida is last spotted by a neighbour at his balcony... his family never sees him after that.

Anant Pawar boards a bus to go to his village ... the bus reaches the village, Anant does not.

These are only a few stories about real people from real families, which are dealt with on Sony Entertainment Television’s new shop, Missing.

India has only two bureaus for missing persons, one each bureaus in Mumbai and Delhi, which are hardly adequate to deal with the numerous cases lodged with them. Families whose members go missing just wait and hope.

Missing researches these cases, puts the facts together and pieces the story as told by family members, friends, acquaintances and the police.

Presented by Jackie Shroff, every episode recreates the story of one missing individual with some dramatised sequences and interviews with the bereaved families. Missing showcases the power of television for a good social cause.

All-star shows

It’s celebration time at Star Plus as it launches an interesting line-up of shows for its cross section of viewers.

Two of the more interesting shows which have been launched in July are I Love My India. In this unusual countdown show anchors Devan Bhojani and Vrajesh Hirji talk to different people every week — cobbler, collegian, politician, film star — on their views on India and how they are all proud of it in their own ways.

The other, Say Cheese, is a vivacious half-hour potpourri of assorted music, Bollywood grapevine, gupshup, chat with viewers, a show which answers the Where? Who? How? What? Why? of a film song or a pop album, shot on outdoor locales. This musical chatty show is script-driven and full of fun.

There is also an interesting line-up of more new shows from Monday to Friday including family serials, satires, film-based programmes, game shows and comedies. So keep watching Star Plus; it has something for everyone now.

Peep into the millennium

It’s a guide to how things will change in the coming years. Towards Millennium on DD Metro is based on opinions of over 3,000 well known people — an exercise which took all of six years.

The interviewees include some of the country’s Who’s Who ranging from policy-makers, CEOs, economists, political leaders, senior bureaucrats and intellectuals in various fields.

These eminent people give their vision of things to come. The show is produced by ‘Vanguard’ whose earlier production, Industry Monitor, became India’s first DD TV show to go on the Internet, recording an amazing million plus hits within a month.

Towards Millennium follows the same editorial pattern.

In one show it talks of a recent global survey which reveals that India is among the world’s least aware and marginally prepared nations for the millennium bug, when computers could wreak economic havoc. To disseminate the awareness of this issue, the show will have a special segment, ‘Y2K Watch’.

Watch out for this show every Saturday. It’s both thought-provoking and absorbing.

Change is the key

Here’s one more story about us common Indians. About issues, questions and moral dilemmas that are raised by the changing political, cultural, social, economic and technological environment. and how they effect us.

Naya Zamana every Monday on Zee revolves around and upper middle class urban family and its struggle to cope with changing times.

It’s about a lawyer and his wife who is a principal of a co-ed college and their typically confused teenaged daughter. There is a supporting cast of interesting and identifiable characters.

The series covers a whole range of topical issues. And it’s about the clash of divergent perspectives of life. At times it uses hypothetical but credible situations for storytelling.

Naya Zamana’s appeal largely rests on the capable acting of veteran Zareena Wahab who portrays the role of the strict college principal to the hilt. Watch it for her intense portrayal.

Children’s day out

Life is a jig-saw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Whoever said this is so true, especially when it comes to your young hosts, Perzan and Sanna (the kids of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai).

In Kuccha Paapad Pucca Paapad on Star Plus the two are best friends. They try to bring out the real meaning to life, week after week from children’s point of view.

Mini is 11, a girl of the new millennium, who hates homework, loves Barbies, thinks boys are nerds, is good at computers, average at studies. She respects her parents, but feels they are a bit over the hill. She adores Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Dravid.

Jimmy is actually a genie who has spent most of his life in a lamp; and he is TV addict and therefore to him TV is more ‘real’ than the real world. Mini can conjure him up by rubbing hard on an ancient lamp — and chanting Kuccha Paapad Pucca Paapad

The show is hilarious, satirical - a look at the adult world through the eyes of a child every Friday at 7 p.m.

Natural wonders

For the first time, TV viewers will see the world through the eyes of ordinary people performing extraordinary deeds during the Earthwatch scientific expeditions. As they chronicle the state of our planet, their feats and frailties will be on show as they endeavor to find solutions for a sustainable future.

A new 13-part series on animal Planet, Walk on The Wildside, features volunteers from around the world embarking on expeditions to some of the world’s most remote locations to unearth seientific wonders and to offer a demystifying "human" spin on science and field research.

The show will run through July from 5.30 to 6.30 p.m.on Saturdays. These ordinary people from all walks of life take up extraordinary challenges in bringing wildlife and other nature’s wonders closer to us.

Neighbourhood’s envy

Here’s a lovable take-off on the lady-next-door. Shrimati Sharma Na Kehti Thi — you guessed it — is about Mrs. Sharma’s imaginative mind, photographic memory and her craze for Hindi films dialogues, songs, sequences — all which happily transcend to her daily chores, her family, her more existence.

A light-hearted song based show which will bring an instant smile as most of us have met the good-natured and talkative ‘Shrimati Sharmas’ in the neighbourhood.

This serial is dedicated to all those women who find housework and housekeeping a drudgery. It’s Bharati Achrekar (Radhika of Wagle Ki Nayi Duniya) all the way as Shrimati Sharma who is ready to brighten up your evenings every Monday at 7.30 p.m.

— Mukesh Khosla