Prime Time Soap Operas on Indian Television

Shoma Munshi

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367634261
• eBook ISBN: 9781000052244
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines the phenomenon of prime time soap operas on Indian television. An anthropological insight into social issues and practices of contemporary India through the television, this volume analyzes the production of soaps within India's cultural fabric. It deconstructs themes and issues surrounding the "everyday" and the "middle class" through the fiction of the "popular".

In its second edition, this still remains the only book to examine prime time soap operas on Indian television. Without in any way changing the central arguments of the first edition, it adds an essential introductory chapter tracking the tectonic shifts in the Indian "mediascape" over the past decade – including how the explosion of regional language channels and an era of multiple screens have changed soap viewing forever.

Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, the book traces how prime time soaps in India still grab the maximum eyeballs and remain the biggest earners for TV channels. The book will be of interest to students of anthropology and sociology, media and cultural studies, visual culture studies, gender and family studies, and also Asian studies in general. It is also an important resource for media producers, both in content production and television channels, as well as for the general reader.

1
INTRODUCTION

On 3 July 2000, a soap opera, with little known actors, debuted on prime time on a struggling television channel. That soap opera was Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (Because the Mother-in-Law Was Also Once a Daughter-in-Law, henceforth Kyunki), the production house was Balaji Telefilms, and the television channel was Star Plus. A few months later, on 16 October 2000, Balaji Telefilms launched their second prime time soap on Star Plus, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii (The Story of Every Home, henceforth Kahaani). At that time, no one expected what came to be termed the “saas–bahu sagas” (mother-in-law–daughter-in-law sagas) to become the chhotey parde ki bari baat (the big thing on the small screen), transforming the fortunes of the production house and the television channel, making their leading stars household names, and millions of Indians, both in India and overseas, part of the extended Virani (Kyunki) and Aggarwal (Kahaani) families.

The first serials to be aired in India were Hum Log (We People, 1984) and Buniyaad (Foundation 1986). Both were telecast on the state-sponsored channel, Doordarshan, and became very popular with audiences (see Brown and Cody 1991; Das 1995; and Mankekar 1999 for details). But times change, and a generation that was enjoying the fruits of India’s economic liberalization since the beginning of the 1990s started looking for something new. This was the period that marked the entry of prime time soaps on Indian satellite television channels. These soaps raised the bar for production values; introduced catchy title songs and the opening montage; brought in aspirational lifestyles, but one that espoused parivaar aur parampara (family and tradition); expensive and stylized sets; and an upmarket look, reminiscent of popular Bollywood films of the 1990s. Nothing like this had been seen before on TV.¹

Tulsi of Kyunki and Parvati of Kahaani became the ideal wives and bahu s. They, along with the negative women characters, set fashion trends in saris, blouses, and jewelry. Even the men got their share of fan following and adulation. When Mihir, Tulsi’s husband in Kyunki, was killed, women took to the streets in protest. So many e-mails came in, both to the offices of Balaji Telefilms and Star Plus, that their computers crashed.² The producers had no choice but to resurrect Mihir’s character, this time played by another actor.

After multiple twists and turns of the plot – generation leaps, plastic surgery, amnesiac bouts, rapes, murders, extra-marital affairs, and illegitimate children – Kahaani bid the audiences goodbye on 9 October 2008; and Kyunki aired its last episode on Star Plus on 6 November 2008; but left the question of its continuing on a rival channel wide open, given the to-be-continued way that the Thursday, 6 November 2008 episode concluded.³

This, however, is no indication that the soap bubble has burst. Newer soaps such as Saat Phere: Saloni Ka Safar (henceforth Saat Phere)⁴ on Zee TV, Sapna Babul Ka … Bidaai (henceforth Bidaai),⁵ and more recently, Balika Vadhu (Child Bride) on Colors are alive and doing well.

Soap, serial, and series

It is in the storytelling format that we can differentiate between the soap, serial, and series, though the difference between these is not always distinct.⁶ A serial is spread over many episodes but tells a complete story. It may use the device of a hook, sometimes also called the cliffanger, to lure audiences back to the next episode. Ramayan, Mahabharat, Hum Log, and Buniyaad are examples of serials. They differ from soaps in that there is a closure to their narratives.

The series format resembles a soap in offering a set of characters and, often, a specific place with which audiences become familiar. Generally one hour long, the narrative structure, however, is such that the main story is resolved in a single episode. The audience is thus offered a satisfactory resolution each time a series is aired. Each telecast is thus complete in itself. Shows such as CID (Crime Investigation Department) and Man Mein Hai Vishwas (There is Faith in My Heart) are examples of series on Indian television.

In soaps, as Christine Geraghty observes, “stories are never finally resolved and even soaps which cease to be made project themselves into a non-existent future” (1991: 11). Soap stories do not encourage a final resolution, and a lack of narrative closure is key to soaps.

Locating Indian prime time soaps

The genre of the soap opera, as it is understood, has its origins in 1930s America in the form of daytime serials broadcast on radio and sponsored by giant soap manufacturers such as Proctor and Gamble, from whence the name. Cantor and Pingree’s work has shown how radio soap operas were the front runner of television soap operas: “the story of the soap opera … after radio became a ‘mass medium’ in 1930 is the story of American manufacturers’ need to find nation-wide consumers for their products, and of a few individuals’ applied creativity and imagination in response to that need” (1983: 34).

Since its beginnings, the study of soap opera came to occupy an important space in discussions of genres of popular culture and in debates about television as a whole. There already exist comprehensive accounts of overviews of work previously carried out in this area (see, for example Creeber 2001; Geraghty 2005: 308–23). Here, I will note what is of importance for this study. To begin with, Geraghty’s observations of the following have resonance: “firstly, defining soap opera [is] one way of separating the characteristics of television drama from drama in theatre or cinema and of assessing distinctions within television drama itself by setting soap opera against other forms such as the series or the serial … secondly, how soap opera has been studied and defined has been affected the development of television studies itself and continues to shape the way we look at certain kinds of issues. Work on soap opera allowed an entrée for feminist work on television … finally in debates about the mass media, soap opera continues to brand television as a whole as a mass medium which produces particular kinds of products. That the term ‘soap opera’ is often used as a metaphor for rather tacky activities in other spheres – politics, sport, business – tells us something about how the pleasures and possibilities of popular television are defined” (2005: 308).

What is important for this study is the moment when in soaps was seen a feminine-oriented narrative in which women were central. Charlotte Brunsdon (1997a) theorized that soap operas, far from being without merit, actually required feminine competencies. This analysis was highly influential as was the idea that soap narratives paid attention to the complexities of the private sphere that tended to be overlooked in other genres. Further, “the centrality of women, and in particular the predominance of stories about families, was an important element in work which ought to situate soap operas into the larger category of melodrama” (Geraghty 2005: 316).⁷

Some academics trace the development of soap operas as a woman’s genre and in reception studies examined it in connection with women as audiences (see, for example, Ang 1985; Brown 1987; Gledhill 1987 a; Seiter 1989, 1999; Geraghty 1991; Nochimson 1992; van Zoonen 1994; Mumford 1995; Dow 1996; Brunsdon 1997a; Mankekar 1999; McMillin 2002a; Hobson 2003; Abu-Lughod 2004; Spence 2005; Klein 2006; McCabe and Akass 2006; Lotz 2006). The soap opera, however, is one of the main texts of television that has broken down the boundaries between high and low culture (Brunsdon 1990: 41). The genre has also evolved as an area of vital importance to the television industry.

This book focuses on prime time soaps on Indian television, what I term “urban family soaps,” and analyzes them as an important resource for insights into contemporary social issues and practices. It is also important because it studies the “popular” and “everyday” (and profitable!) while also concentrating on the middle class.

The “urban family soaps” I focus on are Kyunki, Kahaani, and Kasautii Zindagi Kay (The Trials of Life, henceforth Kasautii). All three are produced by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms and aired during prime time on Star Plus. Kyunki and Kahaani began in the year 2000, and Kasautii began in 2001. All three came to a close in 2008. This book also focuses on two other soaps, Saat Phere (Zee TV, produced by Sphere Origins) and Bidaai (Star Plus, produced by Director’s Kut) that were the first to dislodge Balaji Telefilms’ supremacy with TRPs (Television Rating Points). All of them are aired four days a week, Monday–Thursday, on prime time slots in the evenings.⁸

A few important points need to be noted at this juncture: First, by terming these soaps “urban family soaps,” I do not imply that these soaps are watched only in urban areas by the middle class. The penetration of satellite television into smaller towns and rural areas as well as, very importantly, the overseas market, such as the Middle East, Europe, the US, and Canada, is increasing. Second, it has been noted elsewhere, “while the soap opera audience contains men as well as women, the genre ‘soap opera’ carries heavily feminine connotations in contemporary culture, as it has been marketed and addressed to women since its early twentieth-century broadcast origins. Scholarship on soap opera viewing generally takes this for granted” (Warhol 1998: 2. See also de Lauretis 1987 for her argument on “technologies of gender”).⁹ In referring to the “feminine,” I do not mean that only women watch soaps. Viewership surveys detail that the soaps I am examining are in fact viewed by the family, slotted into what is termed, by the television companies like Star, Sony, and Zee, as “family viewing time,” from 8 pm–11 pm. During this time, however, the woman has charge of the remote control.¹⁰ This puts prime time soaps under pressure to appeal to an evening family audience and this book investigates how this necessity impacts their themes and structures.

Third, India’s middle class, often referred to as important only for their consumer base, numbers more than 400 million now, a substantial body of people to base research on.¹¹ In this regard, Ekta Kapoor, the young and successful producer of Balaji Telefilms, often referred to as the “Queen of Soaps” in India, said in a recent interview that she makes soaps for the middle and lower middle classes, not for women who live in the posh sea-front localities of Mumbai (Ekta Kapoor interview on the Koffee with Karan show, Star One, 27 June 2007). This seems to endorse Patricia Uberoi’s view, and one that I am in agreement with, that “a finger on the pulse of India’s middle and lower middle classes is a finger on the pulse of modern India” (2006: 7). It is important to remember here that these soaps are also watched avidly by families in rural areas.

Fourth, more than one-third of India’s billion inhabitants regularly watch Indian television soaps. In India, and in the Indian diaspora worldwide, they are a feature of life – a source of pleasure, discussion, and shared identity.¹² This is, in one respect, how the media, in this case television soaps, help in the creation of alternative modernities (see, for instance Martin-Barbero 1988; Morley and Robins 1995; Sreberny-Mohammadi 1996; Larkin 1997; van der Veer 1998; Munshi 1998, 2001 c; Gaonkar 1999; Uberoi 2006). Satellite television is making huge inroads into the Indian entertainment market and giving Bollywood competition in viewership and profits. In such a scenario, the soaps I focus on are worthy of serious academic inquiry, keeping pace with the growing legitimacy of the study of poplar culture in academia. It is doubly important because there is a scarcity of methodologically sound empirical studies, with an anthropological/sociological perspective, in this area.¹³

This enterprise is, as Patricia Uberoi states, “about engaging seriously – and … also joyfully – with the stuff of everyday life and popular culture in India” (2006: 3, emphasis in original). My focus is on one genre of popular culture – prime time soap operas from 2000–2008 and their production – to try and understand their importance in the business of television. This is a large enough time span to analyze soap form and narratives as they increasingly explore the representation of women, family and family values, and other social issues in contemporary India.

Each genre of popular culture – films, advertising, romance fiction, soaps, etc. – has its own specificity. But genres of popular culture also borrow from, and within, each other “according to the mode and mechanics of production, as well as considerations of distribution and consumption” (Uberoi 2006: 6). Also, different genres attract different methods of analysis, sometimes borrowing from several fields. Indian prime time soap operas have their origins in a variety of sources, yet have their own unique specificities. I will now outline some of the forms that soap production in India draw from as I attempt to develop a theory of genre for Indian prime time soaps.

Melodrama and realism

It is useful to employ Ien Ang’s straightforward definition of melodrama here when she says “there is a name for cultural genres whose main effect is the stirring up of emotions: melodrama” (1985: 61) that draw on “a tragic structure of feeling.”¹⁴ Not always highly regarded, melodra...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• CONTENTS
• Graphs and illustrations
• Visuals
• Introduction to the second edition
• Acknowledgments for the first edition
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Milieu of production
• 3 Key elements of production: characteristics of soaps
• 4 Soap tales
• 5 Women: similar genre, different representations
• 6 The male voice
• 7 Themes and issues
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix 1: tracking the growth of television in India
• Appendix 2: TAM (Television Audience Measurement) ratings
• Appendix 3: synopses of soap operas
• Bibliography
• Index
• Bck_Adv