Why Indian Television Needs a Hum Paanch?

Humour is a complicated vehicle to drive. One needs to maintain fine balance while carrying entertainment or a strong message. The danger of using humour as a catalyst to put forth a thought provoking point is that the whole message might get lost in the garb of comedy.  It usually takes a re-watch (although not a difficult proposition in case of a good comic entertainer) to unravel the layers that the maker had neatly tucked with the wit, which we missed the first time we saw it.

A very interesting recent blog post by a friend (Read here- http://30dayshathseptember.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/a-new-read-or-a-re-read/ ) puts a pertinent point whether our perception of a form of art changes with time and age as we revisit them. Is it the fact that we evolve or is it just that we forgot to dissect it clinically the first time around?

I feel it happens a lot in the case of comic genre. A classic example of this has been doing rounds across the circumference of my brain. I am referring to the cult comic show of the 90’s -Hum Paanch. For the benefit of those who haven’t seen the show, here’s some information on it –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hum_Paanch_(TV_series)

 

I was a kid, who had the luxury of being exposed to cable television very early. I made full use of it and well, spent literally hours watching Television [which explains the absence of the sport bone in my body]. In addition to that, somehow the family was able to resist acting on the social norm of disconnecting cable connection during exams. So the blessing was perennial.

Hum Paanch was one of my favourite shows back then. The sheer novelty of a good sitcom [ after Dekh Bhai Dekh] and the eccentricity of the characters, backed with witty lines and even insane physical comedy of characters banging heads against the wall or the furniture, had me hooked on for a good dose of entertainment.

But now, in retrospect, when I dissect the whole premise of the show and the characters which were established, I have no second thoughts in touting HUM PAANCH as one of the most, if not the most, progressive show Indian Idiot Box has ever pulled out of its collection.

The show narrates the story of a middle class working man with a family of a wife and 5 daughters. His first wife passed away after the couple had 3 daughters. Albeit, the show described how the father is troubled by the pranks of his daughters, it strongly underlined the essence of a family as well. 

All the daughters in the show were high on the expression quotient, be it the eldest daughter’s work for a feminist cause or Sweety’s definition of the only purpose in her life being to marry Shah Rukh Khan. The characters were epitomes of candid expression of what they aspired. Their aspiration was fuelled by the support of their mother. The affection she bestowed on all her daughters was so true that a viewer who would have started following the show sometime in between would totally miss the fact that three of them were her step daughters. Contrast this, with the step mother’s association with nothing less than Satan in most popular culture representation.

What also stood out in the show is each of the daughters had a personality. While we see a deluge of shows these days, very few of them are characters who stand out in terms of a neat character sketch and having a personality trait. Most of them seem like the clone of some other character you might have seen in some other show on some other channel. Hum Paanch ensured that each daughter would be remembered for her individual characteristic traits, distinct and cleanly spaced out.

Coming to the most alluring part of the show which puts this in a bracket for me way above the board compared to others, is the relation Ashok Saraf’s character has with the photo frame of his dead wife [ played brilliantly by Priya Tendulkar]. This beautiful relationship surpasses the myriad romantic or intense dramatic couple stories we have seen. An absolutely simple thought, but it works on so many levels, answering so many complex questions about society and relationships. It shows how it is possible for a man to stay attached to his first wife but not at the expense of his love for his current life partner. At no point does the tone ring of infidelity, it just puts across how he feels blessed to have two wonderful women in his life and he has love to offer for both. This is a very sensitive issue and the show manages to show this fine balance with aplomb.

The show breaks the whole class based barrier where the daughter of the boss is shown to be a stout disciple of one of the daughters. This breaks down all societal conventions of different classes mingling only amongst their own herd and not with each other.

The show portrays a girl who just cannot identify with the mannerisms of a girl and finds herself identifying more with guys. She doesn’t suppress this thought and decides to act on it- she dresses like a boy and doesn’t even mind hanging out with goons.

The show has many nuances which are a source of great learning for the contemporary programming fellows. It’s good to showcase societal reality in storytelling, but it is an equally strong responsibility to pass on subtle messages of how we would like to paint our society to the current as well as the upcoming generation.

We need to micro manage people’s thoughts and break it down to smaller components instead of just parenthesizing them into good or evil. We all need and deserve something better.