The art of grabbing eyeballs, week after week

Prime Time Soap Operas On Indian Television
Shoma Munshi
Routledge
Rs595
312 pages

This book is about prime time soaps on Indian television, analysed very seriously. Focusing on four representative, widely-watched soaps, Shoma Munshi does a very detailed study of the modus operandi of production houses that grab eye-balls, week after week, and even year after year, the values the soaps propagate, and how they reflect the aspirations of viewers.

Drawing upon a large body of previously-published theses on television, both in India and abroad, newspaper clippings, statistical data and her own interviews with electronic media magnates, Munshi makes a case for popular soaps like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, Kasauti Zindagi Kay, Saat Phere…Saloni Ka Safar and Sapna Babul Ka…Bidaai.

Ironically, dense as the book is with facts, figures and theoretical analyses, it may be of no interest to viewers whose viewing habits Munshi has analysed. Controlling the attention span of such viewers is a skill the likes of Ekta Kapoor, Sunjoy Waddhwa and Rajan Sahi have mastered. As Munshi realised, catering to their taste is no easy task. Going behind the small screen, she discovered an entire army of channel heads, producers, directors, writers, cameramen, costume and set designers, make-up artistes and actors working in tandem, round the clock, to give viewers their daily fix of domestic drama. It is a fix that has to be monitored closely and modified suitably on a day-to day basis. The twists and tweaks soap scripts are subjected to are dictated to by the all powerful TRP ratings. Even if this means resurrecting the dead, getting already married heroes and heroines married again or subjecting them to amnesia and plastic surgery. Nothing is too absurd if it can ensure loyal eye balls.

Behind the glamour of those spaghetti-strapped bahus and richly-draped mothers-in law and their daily squabbles is a body of very hard work. Needless to say, those with a fragile health should stay away from this profession. But those with a tough constitution, who can work according to an Ekta Kapoor’s punishing schedules, can drive out from her sets in BMWs, though they may have used the local train to reach there. 

In this lies the value of the book. Those wanting to make a career in the frothy world of soaps will enter it pre-warned. The burgeoning number of students opting for mass media would also find it handy as a ready-reckoner on the genre of prime-time soaps.