In 1977, actor Dheeraj Kumar shot 19 Punjabi films over three years. One of them was shot in Mullapur Garibdass, near Chandigarh, a picture postcard vision of a prosperous Punjab pind.
Almost 30 years on, he went back to the village, found an allmarble, all-white farmhouse in the middle of a sarson da khet, borrowed it from the former army captain for a month and shot his production house, Creative Eye’s new serial Veeranwali there.
The show, on 9X, is one of the several new small town daughters-ofthe-soil soaps, which are popping up in spaces previously reserved for bejewelled jowly ladies running families spanning generations.
Just as Bollywood discovered desi cool with Bunty Aur Babli, recognising the pluck and pugnacity of places which previously had fallen off the map, now Star Plus is leading the charge of the small town brigade on television, going as far as Agra for its new winner Bidaai (which with a TRP of 5.42 displaced the venerable Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in the first week of January), to Kanpur for Santaan and to Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, for the brand new Raja ki Aayegi Baraat. Star Plus’s Senior Creative Director Vivek Bahl, who earlier worked on the trend-setting Saat Phere on Zee TV, heads the team that caters to small town viewers who want reaffirmation and big city viewers with “reverse aspirations”, which translated from television jargon means the comfort of unchanging tradition. Says Bahl: “I think at some point soaps were becoming too plastic.
This ethnic flavour (which in 2000 was restricted to the Gujarati Viranis in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, the Agarwals in Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki and the Basus in Kasautii Zindagi Kay) is now reaping the benefits of a new talent catchment in terms of directors and actors.
So while Bidaai is produced by newcomer Rajan Shahi, one of its two lead stars, Sarah Khan, was Miss Bhopal. As Bahl, who grew up in Mumbai but spent many holidays with grandparents in Jabalpur and Delhi (“which I still consider a small town”), says: “It gives a rawness to the characters and a freshness to the viewers.” The lead of Raja ki Aayegi Baraat, Anjali Abrol, was auditioned in Jammu and the show is produced by firsttimer Rashmi Sharma, a former script co-ordinator.
The move beyond Tulsi’s saris and Parvati’s tears is in keeping with recent research commissioned by Starcom Worldwide and undertaken by Hansa Research across 1,562 respondents between 18 and 54 in socio-economic categories A, B, and C in six-key television viewing centres (Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Kolhapur, and Moradabad), which suggests that nine out of 10 television viewers want a change from the saas-bahu soaps—in Moradabad the percentage was 90.2 per cent, in Kolhapur it was 59.6 per cent, and in Bhopal, it was 67 per cent. Over 50 per cent of respondents expressed confusion about the story lines of these serials. Moreover, 60 per cent of respondents in Kolhapur and Moradabad said the current serials are too high-end, compared to the six-city average of 49 per cent.  Raja ki Aayegi Baraat based in Palampur | Why go desi?
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The figures prove it. With the cable households growing from 41 million in 2002 to 68 million, the growth has come from towns with population of less than one million (from 70 per cent to 72 per cent) and more than one million (8 per cent to 9 per cent). In contrast, the growth of cable households in metros has declined from 23 per cent to 19 per cent.
The special targeting is working: for Star Plus, 60 per cent of the audience share of Bidaai came from the Hindi heartland, while 59 per cent of the audience share of the Gujarati-dominated Baa Bahoo Aur Baby comes from Gujarat and Maharashtra.
It’s a formula that new channels are quickly trying to clone, trying to do away with rapes, kidnappings and third marriages. Star One, launched three years ago for the 25 to 40-yearold big city viewer, has now been repositioned with shows such as Chhoona Hai Aasman, which celebrate small town chutzpah.
Ashish Kaul, executive vice-president, Zee TV, believes the small town syndrome can—and does—work only as a catalyst. “It distinguishes one serial from another, with specific festivals, costumes and language.” His channel’s growth path backs his hypothesis.
Zee TV’s growth has come primarily from metros— between the first two and last two quarters of 2007, metro ratings have gone up by 38 per cent while those in non-metros have gone up by only 22 per cent. For Star Plus though, the small town effect is not only about having the Taj Mahal as the backdrop in Bidaai.
It’s about details such as what to wear (parandis and phulkari in the forthcoming Grihasti based in Punjab) as well as what to celebrate (Durga pujas in Karam Apna Apna).
Will it be enough to retain loyal viewers? Minal Hazarika, a Delhi viewer forum analyst, is already disappointed: “These serials are used merely to hook the small town girls. They begin as role models for them and end up as a treatise on how to hook a rich husband and then how to keep him within the political strife of a joint family. It’s just regional tokenism.”
It’s also sheer survival. The general entertainment category has shrunk from 21.3 per cent of the television viewing universe in 2004 to 20.2 per cent in 2007.
With the new copy-paste culture—try spotting the difference between new entrants like 9X and older ones—the leaders have to innovate, in substance, not style alone.
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