About Me

Dec 29, 2008

A soapy episode

Sitting with mummy darling has its disadvantages. One of them is that you get a heavy dose of her family soaps. Today I'm gonna describe one heart wrenching episode of my mum's favourite saga. This one is known as "Raghukul Reet Sada Chali Ayi". The Ramayanic overtones are evident in the title itself and the title song can make you cry with devotional fervour and familial longing. It goes like "Raghukul reet sada chali ayi,Pran jaye par vachan na jayi" and lots of wisdom about sanskar, parivaar, and sadachaar.
Oh and yes the main character is played by none other than The Great Rajesh Khanna. He is the elder of the two and the two brothers are actually stepbrothers just like Ram and Laxman. Rajesh ji has some big thundering name like singhaniya or something which I currently am unable to recall, infact I doubt I ever caught it beacause he is so revered that everybody calls him Bhaiyya, Beta, Tauji, Sir etc. Nobody utters his name. So this Ram reincarnate has a wife who is barren but the epitome of maternal emotion. The younger brother has another wife who is the bitchy sort and doesnt like the respect Ramji gets in the house and everywhere. And the crunch is a big multimillion dollar business which she wants for her child. By the way this one is blessed with three children. One boy and two girls. All of them love their Tauji. And their is the perennial Amma who never speaks much but when she does the badi bahu and the two girls break into tears without exception, every time.
The episode starts with Rajesh Khanna sitting in his office and three of his employees standing in front of him. One of them is the honest and hardworking and loyal Sharma ji or Verma ji or something. Today is his birthday. Now Ramji starts talking- Khanna ji bataiye hamare sabse imandar aur mehnati employee kaun hai? Khanna ji knows that its just a rhetorical question he knows better than interrupting the superstar's monologue."Woh kaun he jo pichle 25 salon se hamari company ka saath puri mehnat se saath de rahe hai?" and then a lot of woh kaun hai..woh kaun hai..and khanna ji and the other employee look actually puzzled. That great superstar revels in the effect he's creating. All this time Sharma ji or Verma ji or something is almost shivering with fear. He is so inocent that he doesnt even know that he has not been summoned for a session of sadistic spanking. But thats how good people always are. Arent they? And a truly awe inspiring music is playing in the background as if James bond is about to kill the evil German spy. Now that hallowed man asks" Khanna Ji aaj kiska janmadin hai?" and this is supposed to be when the penny drops and the camera goes crazy and the music reaches a crescendo and Khannaji good naturedly says" sir, woh koi aur nahi balki hamare apne Sharma Ji or verma ji or something hai." It turns out that this sweet man is about to retire and he feels that he will not know what to do with himself if "Sir" lets him go. Because "ye office mere liye ghar se bhi badhkar hai sarkar." So Ramji gives a wad of cash and an extention of five years in his service as a birthday gift. Sharma ji rushes to his feet but Ramji embraces him in the nick of time with that well known dialogue"Arre aap to mujhse umra mein bade hain, aap ki jagah yahaan nahi yahaan hai."
About fifteen-twentyminutes have gone in such an important sequence which lets you know in no ambiguous terms that Rajesh khanna is a magnanimous man.
Now the camera turns towards home. By the way the house is known as 'Raghukul Niwas'. The son of the house who is about to join the business as a junior partner has his birthday today, everybody is busy preparing for it. The two daughters, the elder one serious and spectacles laden and the other one chirpy and gullible, are so happy about their Bhaiyya's B-day that they are fluttering about not knowing what to do with their bursting hearts. One of the friend families has also been invited and the wives also engage in a battle of double entendre about their jhumkas and their husbands' looks and this is supposed to be the acme of comedy genre. But the evening turns into night, the guests leave and Tauji is worried but the Ladla is nowhere to be seen.
Actually he is with the younger daughter's boyfriend who is the arch-enemy of his Tauji because, he did something to his mother years ago and now he has sworn" main Raghukul niwas ki eent se eent baja doonga" so now he's thrown a party for the good son of the good family and the limit is reached when he forces him to drink. Poor gullible son is so innocent that he takes all the drinks proffered to him and then the advice to cut loose of his Tauji's influence. Then the good son goes home and the arch-enemy slyly talks to himself "singhaniya, tumhare raghukul niwas mein aag lagane ka kaam ab tumhare pyaare pyaare bacche hi karenge, mere dil mein jalti hui badle ki aag tabhi thandi hogi..Muahahaha.."Faithful audience shivers of repulsion at this point.
By the way this sequence is shot under one strobe light that gives a so called night pub look and the cool people go all "yow man" and "gow for it brau" when the son gulps down the drinks bottoms up. And yeah he keeps rocking his body in such a cool way that Elvis Presley will be hard pressed to do.
Now he reaches his home. All the "parivaar ke sadasya" are standing in the exact same positions as they were in the evening. Our hero enters from the main door ..isnt it audacious? and comes face to face with guess who? Tauji. Tauji sees his floating eyelids and understands the whole matter and doesnt even utter a word. A look of deep hurt clouds his face. The boy's father who respects the hell out of his elder brother starts interrogating the boy. The boy has suddenly turned insolent after twenty something years of ideal upbringing under Tauji's supervision, so he says "jahan bhi gaya tha isse lakh guna achi jagah par gaya tha". And everybody turns silent and another heart wrenching symphony starts playing, the world starts roatating, the apocalypse is coming. The father makes to hit he boy. And trusts me he means to hit him but just at that moment Bade Bhaiya says "ruko bacha hai, use jaane do, Jao beta aaram karo".
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Along with ads and public service information This much has taken the whole one hour and so camera pans on the sad and responsibility filled face of The head of the family and then unfortunately for my mom the scintilating entertainment ends.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey ya it is fun to read....."jahan bhi gaya tha isse lakh guna achi jagah par gaya tha'.....i ws rolling man...... well sure if we tell ur mum to describe that episode....she is bound to reduce us to tears.....in a non funny way!!

Lavanya Snigdha said...

nice... what do you have to think about ending it?

Unknown said...

cant end it ....thats the F of it

Rinzu said...

nice way of narration...!!!

:D

enjoyed the fun part

Unknown said...

thanx..

Unknown said...

Mr. Writer, The name of the central character of Rajesh Khanna is MR. ANAND MOHAN MALHOTRA, who is fondly called as BADE PAPA by the children of the house. In today's environment, this is a pure and pure class family drama with class performances by every body especially Mr. Rajesh Khanna as superb characterization of his untouched style. This type of class mega TV serial can be expected only from Kakaji.

Unknown said...

@Mr. AKR please suit yourself...and yeah there is a certain merit to predictable serials...They act like comfort chairs for ur brain. You dont us eit. It gets relaxed. \peace/

VIDYA said...

lol...Nice one..sometimes soaps do beg for criticism!

Unknown said...

@vidya..Thank you so very much. The soaps we see do not need critisism as much as harsh invective.