Twenty five years ago, a lower middle class family imposed itself on us and demanded, commanded our attention. Basesar Ram and Bhagwanti, their four children - two boys and two girls — Dadaji and Dadi were Hum Log, an everyday urban household, low on income, with middling ambitions and high family loyalties. At the end of each episode, thespian Ashok Kumar discussed issues raised within the 25-minute soap and we were expected to think about what had happened. Imagine.

It was our first full-fledged soap opera and perhaps the only one created to educate more than it entertained. Like all its successors, it began well, faltered in between and ended long after it ought to have. It was a small budget, no frills, slow-paced production that belonged to the 1950s-60s rather than 1984. It had that old world feel to it.

It, uniquely, possessed the qualities of its characters: It dragged rather like Bhagwanti did her tired feet, it sank into a stupor with Basesar Ram after a few drinks, it was earnest like do-gooder Badki, innocent like the young son Nanhe, directionless as first born Lallu but bold as aspiring actress Majhli and as ambitious as doctor-to-be Chutki. Holding everything and everyone together were Dadaji and Dadi. We the people who watched Hum Log, still remember them as if it’s 9 pm and time to tune into their lives once more.

Curiously, TV soap is returning to middle class lives, trying to educate us, make us think about matters rather more serious than the shape of a bindi, the style of blouse. Aapki Antara (Zee) epitomises this effort; it deals with a middle class family coming to terms with a young daughter who is autistic. The pace has been as painfully slow as the realisation of her condition but it’s told without histrionics, flourishes or musical excesses. It’s that unusual and rare creature: a sensitive portrayal of a sensitive subject. This is not a lesson in clinical psychology but a human drama and you want to return to watch the next episode. Antara is of course the cynosure of our eyes but the parents, especially the father, are played with great restraint. BBC Entertainment telecast a film, After Thomas a fortnight ago, which dealt with an autistic boy and Thomas, the dog who rescues him from his condition. Aapki Antara is cast in the same mould.

... contd.