Aug 19, 2008 04:00 PM
17637 Views
(Updated Aug 21, 2008 04:29 PM)
A B C D E F G…
G se nikli Lajjoji…
Lajjoji ne khaaya badaam…
Badaam se nikla Haveli Ram…
Haveli Ram ne kholi almaari…
Almaari se nikli Veerawali…
Veerawali ne khaaya paan…
Paan se nikla Vrushbhaan…
Remember these lines? If you do, you have the privilege of belonging to the most golden generation India has ever had – you have spent your childhood in the eighties… India's own Baby Boomer generation, when things did go wrong, but for the kids there was no time better than that. No time better because this was the time India was really evolving for the common denomination of people.
Kids were seeing televisions in their homes going from black and white to color(I am a 1975 kid and I really used to think for a while that painters come and paint your TV set in various colors… I even asked my mother how the colors would change – "Did they paint each scene and send?"). This was the time when kids were still playing Dabba Ice Pice and Saakhlee in their building compounds. This was the time when a school year beginning still meant you would go with your daddy to the nearby stationery store and get a year-ful of supplies and new textbooks. This was the time when going to the movies was a once-six-monthly affair and there was no smell of caramel popcorn in the theaters.
This was the time when people were still friends – neighbors would still come over to fix your leaking taps. This was the time when DD Metro and Superhit Mukaabla had still not happened. Sorry, I am straying. I am royally straying. But I am sure there are many of you choked up with emotions already. I am. Buniyaad belongs to that part of my life. It is no specific time, no specific year, but it is part of all the golden childhood I had.
The childhood when I had no more than six'home' shirts and three'outside' shirts but when I had more than 38 true friends! And I had a television(color or black and white at that point, I don't remember), and the television made me quite rich, especially with Buniyaad.(I have a fond tear in my eye as I am writing this review). Okay, no straying now. Let's speak about Buniyaad. The Sippys gave two things to the Indian post-Independence generations for which sins of their seven future generations are absolved in advance. One of them was Sholay(which was released in my birth year incidentally – 1975, but I did not watch it till much later) and the other was the television show Buniyaad.
The former revolutionized the movies and set a benchmark for all other movies to follow. The latter revolutionized television. It was the half hour when people did not call their television sets'Idiot boxes'. But sadly, we have forgotten Buniyaad today. I am trying to jog your memories. There was no one in India in the eighties that had not watched Buniyaad. Whether it was in their own house(a lot of Indians saved to buy their television sets just for this show, and there were no sharks back them with their sleazy installment schemes) or in the house of a kindly neighbor, they did watch every episode. Women cooked early so they could catch Buniyaad; men stayed up at work longer so that they could catch it in their offices if they were lucky enough to have a television then(note that no man in India in the eighties returned from work before 10 pm. If he did, he was close to unemployed in the society's eyes).
There is no single genre where you can fix Buniyaad. At best, it is a story of the Partition, or rather the effects of the Partition. Master Haveli Ram(Alok Nath) is the main protagonist with his much extended family. But the show begins with a very youthful and exuberant Haveli Ram falling in love with his student Lajwanti(Anita Kanwar). I still cannot get the romantic camaraderie this couple had when they were on screen. Alok Nath is in no way handsome and neither is Anita Kanwar any epitome of beauty, but the way she closed her eyes when she was caressed by Alok Nath set screens on fire. And yes, I was only about 10-12 years when this serial was aired, but I felt the chemistry. They marry and have three children. Each one was played by an iconic actor of the television at that time –(Dalip Tahil), Roshan(Mazhar Khan) and Satbir(Kanwaljeet Singh). The story sees the children grow up and marry and have children and live in true old pre-Independence style. Of course, there is Veerawali(Kiron Joneja), Haveli Ram's sister and her own story. And try as you might, you cannot forget Lochan(Soni Razdan) who plays the bitchy wife of the older son played by Dalip Tahil.
Master Haveli Ram lives his life as safely as possible. But he does have political interests. And it is a very bad time to have those. Partition happens, and the family is distraught. Master Haveli Ram goes missing in the ensuing riots. The family has to leave their ancestral home and live in a refugee camp. But life goes on. The part where Master Haveli Ram returns(many, many episodes later) was a much-celebrated one. People really wept, they were touched by the whole turn of events. But when he returns he sees life has gone much ahead. It is difficult for him to put his finger on things. The serial sweeps three generations and two eras of Indian history. This is a very tall order, but it is done. Expertly.
No other movie or show has come close to Buniyaad to capturing the pulse of the real India of those times. The very authentic Punjabi house, the very real refugee camp and the very genuine depiction of life of urban children post-Partition – you can really feel as though you live there. I have felt myself choked throughout while writing this review. It is six in the morning and I am writing this as I wait for things to start happening for the day in my house. I am alone. And I am nostalgic. I am thinking whether India will again see such a classic. Chances are, the golden age will never some back. We will never see a Buniyaad again with Ashok Kumar to come and open the day's events for us. We will never have a Hum Log again.
Come to think of it, we will never have a Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi again. If you are reading this and are recognizing these shows too, you are rich. If you were born later and don't recognize these shows, you are deprived. You belong to the immensely poor K-generation of India. My condolences with you. But then, there are always DVDs of Buniyaad available. You won't find DVD sets of Hum Log and Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi simply because television producers in those times were not as bastardly commercial as they are today.(Update - Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi CDs are now available! Shemaroo has done the lovely task or releasing them!) They would only make a classic, try their best to get it aired and forget about it. But the Indian people never forgot that. At least those who belong to India's own Baby Boomer generation.
Jai Hind!
