Note/Disclaimer/Info: Once upon a time, a certain buck-toothed, chubby, pompous brat of a certain veteran Jumping Jack got it into her head to prove her mettle. She wanted to sock ‘em all one in the jaw. Well, she’s the head honcho of a gad-zillion mega hoots (also known as serials) on air at this time on major channels in India (and the UAE of course). So I guess she did prove it that all its takes is some manipulative abilities (women are born with that, Machiavelli’s mom was a woman no?), some head for business (allegedly inherited from her mom) and a savvy for being in the right place at the right time with the right subjects (move over evil Saas-dodo Bahu; enter savvy Saas-smart Bahu).
________________________________________________________________
The Plot...?
Kusum was a simple girl from a middle-class household, going through the grind like a million other girls do in Mumbai to earn a living. ‘Ek aam ladki ki khaas kahani’ screamed the posters all over Andheri station (I didn’t dare look at other places, she was blinding me with the bright trousseau already). Well that was correct, something special happened to this ordinary girl. She got hitched to her boss. (Well that’s not so special is it, secretary-boss romances are the stuff girls fuel their romantic fantasies on when they are all of 11 years old.) The funny part in this was – she was married to Abhay Kapoor because their ‘kulguru’ predicted dangers in Abhay’s life if he wasn’t married to someone with a particular sort of ‘kundli’ and guess who had the perfect ‘kundli’? Of course, Kusum!
Now pay attention closely, I’ll write this only once (though y’all can read it over and over again if it doesn’t make sense the first time round):
Abhay does not love Kusum, married her only for her horror-scope and to stop his mom’s nagging. (That’s a hell of a reason to say ‘I do’. I don’t think it happens this way in real life, does it???)
Kusum expected love but got to see her hubby gallivanting with everyone else except her.
Enter Isha as Kusum’s best friend, but exit as her ‘souten’ (the other woman).
Interspersed in all this is tears – mom cries, saas cries, Kusum cries, Isha screams and cries, everyone in the family sheds copious tears when confronted with Kusum’s piteous face. Of course, you cry too while you are watching all those tears. I bet they used glycerine whenever they ran out of dialogues or the screenplay guy called in sick.
With Isha as the big bone in a rotten meatball, Abhay and Kusum call it quits. Events preceding this showdown: Kusum’s carrying a baby, Abhay woos her back coz he can’t sow anymore wild oats (he wants a legitimate heir anyway), Kusum thought it was her charm (Abhay obviously found Isha’s charms better), she discovers them compromising each other (kiss, cuddle, hug, whatever provides the shock), baby’s lost, Kusum’s lost her marbles and off they go to call it quits.
Enter Siddharth, engaged to be married to some other girl but came down like a ton of bricks on meeting Kusum. (Come on, she’s not all that great!) They marry, Kusum moons, Sid swoons, his moms (yeah, he’s got two of those – that’s another track in this forest of tracks) try their best to evict Kusum from their palace, finally Sid is killed in an accident. (You guessed it, Abhay’s car whacked him into the beyond.)
As of now, Abhay and Kusum are now back together, post-divorce 2, post-Siddharth all lovey-dovey.
The Analysis
I believe halfway through the plots, each serial loses its focus. So many characters come in like mushrooms after a rain and they disappear too like the famed fungi.
Anuj Saxena playing Abhay Kapoor is a poor excuse for an actor, he’s better as a clotheshorse. As an aside, Saxena is a qualified architect, a doctor and a management grad who owns his business in Delhi. He’s wasted.
Rohit Roy stepped into his shoes for a while and botched an already messed role even more.
Nausheen Ali Sardar, a Punju kudi through and through, plays Kusum. The role’s given her plenty of exposure, she’s efficient and a good performer.
The dumb plot nowadays makes Kusum a caricature, something to be embarrassed about. How many girls do we know in real life who have been through 3 divorces and 4 remarriages all in the span of a year or so? The start of this serial was good, all about middle class values juxtaposed into an upper class family environ, how Kusum wins over everyone. Posters changed and screamed ‘Kya aap mein Kusum jaise gun hain?’ and ‘Miliye…ek aur Kusum se.’ – those feel-good ads were all over trains and hoardings. I believe they started a trend in the pretty young things in the locals – the brats actually offered their seats to others and of course, they snickered ‘Mainnnnnn KKKKKuuuussssssuuuummm’. (Yikes!)
The rest of the assorted cast are too dumb to be mentioned. While I believe that in real life they are sane, sensible folks, in this epic they are all funnily decked in wigs, clothes and jewellery that nobody would wear even in crazy Mumbai. There are as many as 12 people all relatives of some sort, living in the ‘Kapoor House’ and of course, every other day they bring in more characters like strays into the local animal shelter. I gave up counting.
The Conclusion
This serial was good once, it’s deteriorated into something I wouldn’t recognise if someone changed the cast suddenly. It had a good plot some time in the last century, today it’s just another family-melodrama tripe. Right now they are ‘flaunting’ (for lack of a better word) an issue like rape because I really believe they are out of ideas to prolong this elephantine headache.
I’d have given it up if something else had come along on prime time and my Papa were not so averse to seeing anything English – ‘anorexic ladies prancing half-naked’ on the screen (while he does not use those words, he just says it in pithy Malayalam – I’d rather not try to translate something that dangerous in a public forum like this).
I liked it once.
Now I don’t.