Kasauti Zindagi Ki, suggests in the name itself, to be a travail to the intellect. Yet it is the Magnum Opus of Indian television, watched by the countless denizens of the urban and semi-urban genre who all swear by the Indian sensibility, which gives little credit to logic. I unluckily fall among the outlaws who unsuccessfully have pleaded with their family members and peers to get rid of this torment of 30 minutes, four days a week. There is a strange power at work here -Ekta Kapoor is a genius no doubt to fashion such a cock & bull story, which only redeems itself in the spectacular display of Indian traditions and the culture. A parochial view of the culture though, contriving to express itself on the ungainly poetry of the Saas-Bahu pantheon. If the distance between insanity and genius is measured by success, then by that train of thought, Ekta Kapoor has really expressed a genius ideology at skillfully exploiting a story of love, despair, surrounded by sinister plots, in the typical dogmatic (albeit rich and contemporary) Indian household. The hero, Anurag (he can’t be a protagonist, he is too unrealistically stupid to be a real person) violates all edicts of intellect, and is yet saved from falling grace by his boyish looks (blame it on retarded maturity of the mind) and his generous and benevolent yet myopic view of life, that wants to do good for all, but screws the one that counts. He has found a suitable partner in the guise of Prerna, who displays a sharper wit, but falls prey to her unending love and SACRIFICE (can this moral adornment be spared while describing the archetypical Indian woman), for Mr. Anurag Basu. For crying out loud, one would expect the chief characters to be a bit practical and level-headed. After all they run big companies, don’t they! There are other characters too, whose presence of mind raises questions, but their dumbness in still not as vulgar as that of Anurag. The way these characters lead their lives makes one marvel the way the average Indian really gets on with his/her mundane life without the ordeal of salacious and criminal afflictions. In fact, contrary to the producer’s intention, the characters thrown in for slapstick buffoonery do not stand out conspicuously from the rest. They blend in with the IQ levels of all the others. There is however, some solace to be solicited in the likes of Komolika, who (raffish persona not withstanding) has a visceral presence in the entire serial. She with all her singularities and affectations, paradoxically seems to be a real person – with real malice and real lust (of money and men alike). There needs to be specific mention of the sartorial style of most men in the serial, with matching shiny shirts and ties (what happened to the humble world of the business suit). Even a corporate entourage dresses like Baraatis, with pink, black and green….(actually a whole lot more) galore!! Very painstakingly has Bajaj’s hair been treated with rather unimaginative hair coloring agents to bear him this rather unearthly splendor. A handsome countenance at once becomes unbecoming with the hair coloring from hell, which to describe (words fail me) looks like white mehndi (if such a thing exists) instead of the humanly salt and pepper look. All in all the characters created out of a demented farcical notion, are too ridiculous to be human. Perhaps, a certain Mr. Peter Jackson (director of Lord of the Rings) could draw reasonable inspiration from them. The last straw on the camel’s back is the highly convoluted storyline, which brings in ostensible intrigue (yawn….) of marriage, divorce, re-marriage, kidnapping, death…….which can challenge the length and plot of the Mahabharata. So one finds the sagacious Ved Vyas challenged by the capricious Ekta Kapoor…alas..this is the true Kasauti Zindagi Ki!!