Sunday, October 7, 2001		Television

WHAT do you get when you put together a rebel son, guilt-ridden parents and considerable amount of power or wealth? Plenty of masala for a racy script. The results were best seen in the eighties’ Dilip Kumar-Amitabh Bachchan thriller, Shakti. Now you can see a watered down version in Jaane Anjaane every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m. on DD-1.

Pankaj, son of multi-millionaire Prannath and Urmila Vasisth, has had everything laid out for him in life. Everything, except the time and love of his parents. There is so much neglect in his upbringing that it borders on callousness.

Things start hotting up when an accident leaves Pankaj with a limp. The incident mars his relationship with his parents. Even the coming of a daughter doesn’t bring any joy to the household that has everything going for it except happiness.

On Pankaj’s 21st birthday the father gifts him a computer factory but the disillusioned son declines the present and picks up a job with an infotech firm. Here he gets smitten by an office colleague even though his parents have formally fixed his engagement.

The alarmed parents start making all-out attempts to bring the prodigal angry son back in the fold. Will he oblige? Will he marry the girl of his parent’s choice or the one he loves?

Watch this saga of a family caught in a web of its own making. The plot may look familiar but the contours here are different.

Passion for fashion

FTV channel missed out on a stirring fashion event in Delhi. No, it wasn’t a Ritu Beri or a Rohit Bal show but it had the same glitter and glamour with models sashaying down the ramp.

But they weren’t your usual line up of Shefali Talwars, Aparna Kumars and Ramneek Paintals. They were ladies associated of the small screen who all agreed to participate for a cause — the proceeds of the show would go to the Cancer Patients Aid Association.

On the ramp were Anuradha Prasad of BAG films that produces programmes like Chalti Ka Naam Antakshri, Do Aur Do Paanch and Ru Ba Ru. She was followed by actresses, Sushma Seth, Malvika Tewari and compere Manpreet Brar. Then came Nalini Singh who’s made a name for herself in Aankhon Dekhi and Nishaan and finally Sonia Verma who co-hosts World This Week.

The most awaited ‘model’ and also the grand old lady of television, Zohra Segal couldn’t make it to the show. But the other senior artists brought in colour and a touch of maturity to a pageant generally associated with youth. The event had audiences applauding for the entire evening.

Win or lose, the passion for cricket in India is ...well ...a passion! And that is why Sachin Tendulkar turned a legend before he turned 21. Which also explains why a number of channels release a plethora of cricket-related shows.

After airing the recent India-Sri Lanka series Sony Max has suddenly discovered the virtues of cricket. Even as the Indian team tour South Africa, the channel has two shows on air every Friday, Just Cricket 8 p.m. followed by Max Cricket Masters at 8.30 p.m.

Just Cricket is a weekly half-hour show of news, action and cricket stories from around the world. And Max Cricket Masters hosted by Ravi Shastri relives the most memorable innings of top Indian cricketing heroes. The show also provides rare nuggets of information with graphs, expert comments and anecdotes.

If Sony Max is there, can ESPN-Star be far behind? The sports channel has begun airing Super Selector which has Gavaskar, Boycott and the ubiquitous Navjot Sidhu who has made a niche for himself with his Sidhuisms.

So, get ready for an early meal. It’s going to be a busy Friday evening where you’ll have to toss and decide on what to watch at 8.30 p.m.

Comedy surely is serious business. That’s why there’s such a dearth of this genre of TV programming. From Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi to Tu Tu Main Main, you can just about count the funny shows on your finger tips over the past two decades.

Now you can add another name to that small list. Hum Saath Aath Hain, a new daily comedy on Star Plus from Monday to Thursday 7.30 p.m. takes a light-hearted look at a typical joint family in a tongue-incheek kind of way.

The plot revolves around school teacher Satya Prakash Kapoor who has imparted true Hindu shiksha to his two sons Ram and Laxman. His major concern in life is find an ideal bahu for younger son Laxman — a Hindu nari who is neither convent educated nor working just like his elder daughter-in-law.

But Laxman has other plans. With the help of his brother, Ram, he gets married to Nirmala (Eva Grover), an America-returned doctor who misses by about a million miles Satya Prakash’s idea of a dream dulhan. The funniest moments of the serial come with everyone trying to hide the true identity of the new daughter-in-law.

But once that’s revealed and it dawns upon the old man that even a modern working woman can be an excellent bahu, the serial becomes moralistic. Your best bet is to stay tuned to the rib-tickling parts for some good laughs.

The heart-pounding images of planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon may have pushed America towards the first war of the new-millennium, but it has brought the smiles back for some. News channels stuck with low viewership rating are back in the reckoning.

An independent survey by Delhi-based SVMARC shows that viewers developed distinct taste for news after the crisis. Channels that were high on the popularity list in India included Aaj Tak (30 per cent), CNN, Star and Zee (18 per cent each) followed by BBC (10 per cent) and Doordarshan at a low of six per cent.

Worldwide news channels —perhaps for the first time since the Gulf War — toppled all-time favourities shows like Baywatch, VIP, Frasier and Friends.

Even popular search engines on the Internet began witnessing a confused viewing pattern. According to reports, for the first time in its popular history, sex dropped out of the top 10 list and was replaced by news and other popular search items like Osama bin Laden, World Trade Center, Nostradamus and a host of other sites related to Black Tuesday.

As TVnews journalist puts it, "It’s sad we have to wait for such incidents for a hike in our ratings. That’s why for us, bad news is always good news!"

News channels had a field day.

It handles more money than any other bank in the world and safeguards American currency. Discovery Channel takes viewers inside the Federal Reserve Bank of the USA, processes more than US$2 trillion dollars. In Inside The World’s Mightiest Bank, October 8 at 10 p.m., viewers witness the delicate dealings that occur in this colossal bank.

The Federal Reserve is the world’s largest busiest and most powerful financial institution. It is the central bank of USA and it is the bank that serves and regulates other banks.

Today, the Federal Reserve faces the greatest challenges in its history — it has to cope with an unprecedented global demand for American dollars and protect this money from the greatest assault of counterfeiting ever, created by the digital revolution.

To combat counterfeiters, the Federal Reserve has now ordered the greatest re-design of US dollars in more than half a century. And even as it manages all this paper money, it has to prepare the USA’s economy for a paperless future of electronic transfers.

Don’t miss this fascinating insight into the world of big money and bigger security with an unprecedented access to the people and places where money is made and spent in billions and trillions.

— Mukesh Khosla