Heart-stricken

Heart-stricken

In his popular smiley-weepie telserial, Sailaab, that followed the boisterous-bordering-on-the-melodramatic Tara, Ravi Rai told his audiences that marriage is the start, and not the end of romantic complications.

Yet, it wasn’t ‘bold’ by Indian standards. There were pregnant pauses between dialogues, tears that stained the cheeks of a heartbroken Shivani (the girl-next-door), mellow, melancholy expressions in soft focus, Jagjit Singh’s voice, that gave a tender ache to the opening sequence basically as subtle as it could get. Realism abounded: small domestic worries, conscience vs heart. And the nice couple: they didn’t divorce! Betraying a spouse was worse than hurting a soulmate.

So why did it work and how was it different? “Precisely that. It had the purdah that most educated, middle-class people would relate to and appreciate. The emotions weren’t on your face. Serials like Tara and others often seemed obscene to me. Sailaab was a fresh break from the cigarette-smoking, adulterous heroine of Indian television at just the right time,” the director reasons out. We call it a clever view of couples in romantic upheaval. One that lacks machismo and tells you that soppy emotional is not funny. Or a formula that set a trend-of-sorts in many successful serials to come Rai’s own Imtihan, Sparsh, Teacher and Thoda Hai Thodi Ki Zaroorat Hai and a few of others as well. The director’s latest is a similar-sounding Thoda Sa Gam Thodi Khusi at B4U, with Mayuri Kango, Sumeet Saigal and others. Need we say what it is about?Anyway, in Rai’s own words, “It is about the human comedy in the urban landscape, which is actually very sad. Everyone’s nuts about something and they’re constantly after it like fools, trampling over soul mates, wives and friends on the way.”

Ironically, Rai himself is everything but mellow and melancholy. He came to Bombay in the 80’s “to make money” and ended up getting into Bollywood instead. “After a lot of struggle, I managed to get two films, Do Pal, with Karisma Kapoor and Rahul Roy and Dil Diya Chori Chori with Vivek Mushran and Raveena Tandon. Both got nipped because the actors weren’t doing well and the producers weren’t ready to go ahead. Bollywood was one big disillusionment,” Rai admits. Television is just about fine. “I see it as my source of bread and butter, nothing else. I don’t have any dream project. I want to do what comes to naturally to me.” Which incidentally is mostly imagination. All his ideas take shape when he imagines himself in a situation: ‘What if I were to realise that I was in love with my old girlfriend? What would happen to my family if I died today? Blah Blah.. The rest is a combination of my sensibilities and my past.”After over a decade in the television industry, Rai has a niche carved out for himself, but it isn’t without its dose of bitterness. He wouldn’t want to see Indian television the way it is today, for too long. “Look at the way, for example, women are portrayed in most of the shows and serials. Like dolls and seductresses.

This, despite that Indian television has four women on top positions, women who have broken the glass ceiling and are in a position to change things.” He could go on about Bollywood too. “I may dabble with Bollywood again, but I don’t have a dream project. I think that’s stupid. There’s no Stanley Kubrick or Guru Dutt to inspire me.”

But Ravi Rai knows he’s here to stay. And we don’t mind. Who better than one of Indian television’s beguilingly tenacious presence to teach lessons of the heart?