I remember taking an undefinable enmity to serials that were aired 24*7 and got intrigued at the idea of getting intrigued by those fictionally portrayed fictional characters. There had been such an awfully awkward similarity among all of them. It all began with a chirpy girl dressed in all possible colours of salwar,jeans,minis, running like a rat with unnecessary irritating grins and showcasing their all the more fake love for their fake families. All the girls seemed to be Kristen Stewarts who loved their siblings more than their ipads. And then came a guy and a villain. It was quite a feat for the directors to bring out such a ground where both the morons seemed to outdo each other in the whose-lines-are-worse race. Yeah, in India we females have been scetched like Durga Mata with a Mr. Bean brain. The good guy soon became the soulmate while the well trusted villain became the vishwasghatak. They all ended up getting married and moving into sarees. Death was so easy to deceive. You’re lying in your grave doesn’t mean you can’t be back for the next episode. Polygamy wasn’t a punishable offence and jewellery never expensive.
A time would eventually arrive, when we’d all wish that the serial had ended. The channel would only think about closing the show when the TRPs dropped,and when it did, the story had turned out to become chickens that carried bird flu. This rotten shit had blended my childhood with a blissful sense of horrible imagination The mental age of most soap makers seemed to be no better than a 10 yr old,while they treated their audience as if we were all out of mental hospitals for vacations!
My parents had got pretty used to English channels now. They followed the subtitles and never complained of accents any longer.
I was swallowing Supernatural like a ravenous baby. Yep, English unbelievable stuff still seemed a treat to me than switching into a saas-bahu-melodrama. We were focused on Jenson Ackles. A true gentleman (blush!).Then I switched to Two and a Half men, Hachiko, to and fro. All had run for a commercial break at the same time (most irritating bit of watching tv) and I handed the remote to dad, a permission for some news.
He was counting down the numbers one at a time and was passing channel number 26.
“Mrs Vyas ke ghar sirf chaar sawal poochne gaya tha…. Mrs Vyas???? Ji uss din…”
My dad had hopped to channel no 25.
“Papa come back to Colors once. Please.”
The veteran was overjoyed with a radio in hand, over a victory.
“Anjan Srivastav?” my mom inquired the tv.
“Pehle sawal ka jawab diya sasurji ne…”
The first thing that caught my attention was the distinguishable pair who were desperately trying to converse amid all the amazing hullabaloo,and a background music that raised my brows. And then I was in splits.
“Aur phir Kuttaaaa…Aap ko nahi lagta jootein mein lace baandhne k liye hote hain?”
I believe, well its particularly a personal belief, that if anything’s good, I’ll be the first to like it. This was certainly good, atleast different, since I’d taken a stop to notice it.
That wasn’t when I’d realized what I’d be doing at 10:30 every night from then onwards.
Today, I can call myself a blind lover of Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuch Kaha. I call this a new morning in my life,where I’d embraced a hindi soap with such warmth. I’d went on watching Dexter, loving Hollywood, dreaming American Idol. But subsequent chance meetings at accurate times on Colors had thrown me into the cell, where it was hard to escape anymore. And well, I enjoyed this prison!
“Yeh baat karte waqt chewing gum chabaana zaruri hai kya?” or the most recent one where “Bade Bade logo ke saath aise chhote motey haadse hotein rehte hain" had finally got my feet above the grounds and I decided to give a shot at the first episode.
My mom was super excited that finally her daughter was normal again.
Well, the river kept rolling from the night of Jan 9.
“Ghar mein maa behen nahi hain,nahi hain,nahi hain !” and there I was, all smiles and merry ,watching, and yes, drinking this golden wine to the last drop….
I owe it to the entire NBT team for this joyride. I’d sacrificed Winchester Brothers to the 4 pm repeat cause delaying NBT to the 3:30 pm re telecast would be a blunder of my life.
You people have received accolades from all probable quarters, praises for your acts, honeyed reviews by Swati Ghosh on Rangmunch and love from thousands of viewers across the globe. In the past few months I’d come across girls who’d so simply decided their grooms as Mohan Bhatnagar and women who’d failed to fall out of love from their most-eligible-bachelor-of-the-country Kunal Karan Kapoor.
My brother had shamefully declared infront of all, “I know why I haven’t got a proper girlfriend yet. Aakanksha was waiting for me all along you see.”
We all have these little fairy tales of our own made up, when a fiction has come forth to matter so much. It had all been so splendid for all of us to get a hot and savoury dish of half an hour placed on our dinner tables on week days, after your excruciating hard work. So what’s more that I wanted to tell the NBT team? Well nothing intricately different from the rest, really. Its just a warm Thank You, that someone had really cared to bring me back to the Indian soil as far as entertainment is concerned.
I’d always live with a great favour from this team for burning the let’s-become-an-author candle in me. You guys have finally given me the ray of light to which I can proceed and begin my 1st novel. The novel being halfway through, I’m beginning to dream about gifting my book to this team (if it ever gets published though!). Well that’s a very small thing that I want to do (Don’t know if I can) for you guys in return, for gluing our family with better adhesive this time !!!!!!!!
I’ll wish that you’d never overcook this dish, but turn off the gas when the cooking is over. I don’t want another spoiled broth, cause no matter how hard you try, only the bad memories survive of any fair thing gone evil. In other words, we’d all love to get a glimpse of Mohan and Megha’s post marriage life, but try not to stretch it. We won’t have all the appetite to know who Nanhi goes out to marry in future. Indian soaps had so far gifted us disgusting reincarnations. I have the strong, strong, very strong belief, that you don’t have intensions of bringing Amar Vyas back after the duo’s happily settled!!!! Apology for this shameless plug in but I’m too messed up with Ekta Kapoor shit.
Na Bole Tum is our story. Story of our neighbourhood. Story of everyone who knows a Mohan or Megha in their localities. Try to keep it ours till the end.
Well , Colors is here to stay as long as it wishes to, in our living room. I’ll keep loving you people and would love to be loved by you guys for my 1st novel….
This was...NBT aur Ankita ki dilchasp story.
Written by:
Ankita (Infra Red Franco)
