• 
  Ballika Vadhu..
• 

Channel: COLORS
Serial Timing: 8:00pm
Cast: Surekha Sikri, Anup Soni, Smita Bansal, Satyajit Sharma, Vibha Anand, Neha Marda,Avinash Mukherjee, Avika Gor

The Review

TV Naani Badi Sayaani

Where have you been, ox?’ thunders TV Naani and I jump at the suddenness! I need not have! After all, what’s TV Naani if not abrupt. Three things are basic to her – she erupts at the drop of a hat and without rhyme or reason… she chatters nineteen to a dozen and that too with a pungency all her own… and she devours each soap on the tube, day-in and day-out!

The last is why she’s is called TV Naani!

And she is in her elements, today… ‘It has been weeks since you left for your errands. So much has happened ‘here’ (read TV) in the meanwhile – how will you catch up?’

‘I will! You are there, na!’, I chirp!

‘Moron!’ she chuckles indulgently. ‘But really, do you know Anandi died! Er, almost!’

‘Almost?’, I am flummoxed!

‘Where have you been, ox?’ thunders TV Naani and I jump at the suddenness! I need not have! After all, what’s TV Naani if not abrupt. Three things are basic to her – she erupts at the drop of a hat and without rhyme or reason… she chatters nineteen to a dozen and that too with a pungency all her own… and she devours each soap on the tube, day-in and day-out!

The last is why she’s is called TV Naani!

And she is in her elements, today… ‘It has been weeks since you left for your errands. So much has happened ‘here’ (read TV) in the meanwhile – how will you catch up?’

‘I will! You are there, na!’, I chirp!

‘Moron!’ she chuckles indulgently. ‘But really, do you know Anandi died! Er, almost!’

‘Almost?’, I am flummoxed!

‘Well she did die biologically, but also didn’t quite die…’, whispers TV Naani!

‘Hey, hold on – tell me from the start… what happened?’, I gasp!

‘Arre you can’t, for the life of you, imagine what happened! You are not so creative, na – as they are!’, she purses her lips and pouts!

‘Ok, ok – let’s not talk about me – let us talk about Anandi!’

And then followed this…

‘Oh, she was wandering in Mumbai!’

‘Mumbai? For whatever on earth was she there in Mumbai?’

‘She wasn’t there – Jagdish was there – so she had to be there!’

‘Achha! The little couple went there touring!’

‘No silly, they didn’t go as a couple. He went first and she followed him… and they were not touring!’

‘Gosh! It is getting murky! What were they doing there anyway?’

‘Not they – he was doing it alone!’

‘But what?’

‘Running away from home! Because Baapusa was mad as he had cheated in exams!’

‘But Baapusa has been mad at him all along, no?’

‘This time it was different, dunderhead! Baapusa raised hell and beat him black & blue… the boy kept on having shivers down his spine… and then, he grabbed some wads of notes from the cupboard, tagged a buddy along and took to his heels, finally ending up in Bombay!’

‘Mumbai, you must say! But why are you talking about Jagdish, when Anandi is what we were discussing?’

‘I’m doing exactly that, muttonhead! Because when Jagdish went to Bombay, Anadi went there too – looking for him all over!’

‘Poor little thing! Going to Mumbai alone…’

‘She was not alone, you cuckoo – Baapusa was there and Jeejusa, too!’

‘Oh, then ok!’

‘Nothing was ok – and don’t you rush to judgments like a bull! Poor Anandi was searching for Jaggia in the mazy, mazy Mumbai – as you insist – and with no address!’

‘Must never have found him!’

‘Whaddya you say! In one day, she crossed his way again and again!’

‘Really? Ah, those filmy coincidences?’

‘Say what you want! But once her taxi paused bang beside him! And still, they couldn’t meet! So heart-rending!’

‘Is it? Anyway, did anything happen at all?’

‘Oh, lots! – The big, bad Bombay pounced on Jagdish – swindling him dry, stealing his bag, picking his procket…’

‘Hey, hold your horses, TV Naani – havn’t you strayed into 50’s films – come back to ‘Balika Vadhu’!’

‘I am at ‘Balika Vadhu’, dumbo! These are the ‘fresh’ scenes from our ‘different’ serial…!’

‘Fresh, did you say? Chalo – what next?’

‘Oh, all hell broke loose on Jaggia! He was packed off by goons to the Beggars’ kingpin, who would maim children for going out and begging!’

‘Arre, TV Naani, I think you have lost it! That’s Slumdog Millionaire!’

‘Shaddap, you silly coot! That’s an ‘Original’ scene from ‘Balika Vadhu’! Can you spell original?’

‘Forget it! Tell me, after the maiming where did Jagdish go on one leg?’

‘He didn’t go on one leg – he went on two!’

‘Oh? And whose was the second one?’

‘His own, you dum-dum! Suddenly, everybody went dumb there and so Jaggia ran!’

‘What a relief! At last, he ran away from the goons!’

‘Not ran AWAY – he just ran! But the goons ran, too and went on a rat-hunt for him! And there was a scream – Jaggia!’

‘Oh, the goons screamed to halt him in his tracks?’

‘No, ninny – the goons didn’t scream – Anandi did!’

‘Oh, just in time! How ‘Different’ really!’

‘Don’t you nitpick, you cynic – look at the drama! Anandi shouts, Jaggia shouts – Anandi bolts and Jaggia bolts – towards each other, that is… Ekdam paisa wasool!’

‘You don’t give paisa for TV! Not much, anyway! But the goons – where were they? Didn’t they bolt towards the bolting twosome?’

‘They did! But Anandi had police with her. And then the head-goon turned and shot…’

‘At the police?’

‘No, twit – at Jaggia!’

‘What? Jaggia was hit?’

‘Not Jaggia – Anandi was hit! Right in the forehead!’

‘Goodness grief! Her head must have exploded into smithereens!’

‘How sickly predictable you are! What smithereens? The bullet made a hole in her forehead and rested somewhere inside!’

‘Oh, a designer hole after a bullet-hit? How different… how innovative, indeed!’

‘Don’t you squabble, grumpy! Look at the scene… Anandi with that in forehead hole falling on the ground in slow-motion and blood oozing out in neat streams! Perfect!’

‘Ho-hum! But she mustn’t have survived the blood-loss?’

‘There we go once again! Can’t you have an iota of imagination? Arre, now we have this touching scene of Anandi being wheeled on a stretcher and Jaggia, Baapusa, Jeejusa all drooping over her with distraught faces!’

‘Ah, an nth time original! And then?’

‘Do I have to tell you even that, you blockhead? Then followed the distressing images of Operation Theatre, ICU, Anandi’s folks shuffling back & forth in front of the ICU – and yes, those trembling appeals to God also!’

‘Distressing, did you say? And is this Deja vu really happening in Balika Vadhu? Alas, the times! Anyway – could the doctor take out the bullet?’

‘Yes & No!’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can’t you understand anything, my baffled baby? The doc in Bombay couldn’t – but the doc in US could! But before that Anandi died!’

‘She did?’

‘I mean she died but also didn’t die!’

‘Hey Ram! What’s happening here?’

‘Oh, her heart stopped and the support systems were switched off! That’s dead, no?’

‘Without a shred off doubt! Gawd! Anandi is no more!’

‘Eh patience, you peabrain! What happened was that then Jaggia howled at her ‘Come back, Come back!’ He howled and howled and howled…!’

‘Wait, wait, wait… and then came the finger-stirring scene?’

‘Arre! You are not that dotty after all! Yup – the finger stirred and Jaggia cried and everybody else cried – ‘Anandi is alive!’ So heart-wrenching, no? I feel like crying…!’

‘Don’t! It’s already weepy enough! Ok – and then, the folks brought the alive Anandi back?’

‘Uh? I take my words back – you are dotty to the bones! Arre, the bullet is still in her head, no? And only the doc in US only could take it out!’

‘Did he?’

‘Well, Jaggia howled at him too, long distance – but he didn’t come and the doc in Mumbai decided to operate – risks be damned!’

‘Ah! Did Anandi die at his hands, then?’

‘No, charlie – the Doc in Mumbai goes to the Operation Theatre, but the operation is done by the Doc in US, as he has come! And then…’

‘Please, o’ please – I beg of you! No more of this claptrap! Seen and heard this poppycock a zillion times on the screen – big, small or whatever? What has happened here? Where are my good old BalikaVadhuwaalas?

They are out hunting for TRP’s, you bozo - where else?

Ok – I am just going to place a ‘Gumshuda Ki Talaash’ ad in papers for them.