FLASH | Sunday, November 29, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Hum Log, abhi bhi
Twenty-five years is a long time. Long enough to create a generation gap. Yet India’s first soap opera, Hum Log, remains a benchmark of our pop culture, the precursor of television revolution as we know it today. The patriarchal family that needed to sort out its issues and aspirations in a changing India had not only captivated our collective mind, it had become our extended family. In its silver jubilee year, veteran actor Vinod Nagpal, who played Basesar Ram, and Abhinav Chaturvedi, who played his loveable son Nanhe, decide to do a walkthrough of Delhi’s Himachal Bhavan, where the crew rehearsed for two years over endless cups of tea and pakoras. The staff still stand up to greet them and as they refresh their memories, they tell Namaskaar Editor-in-Chief Chandan Mitra how television in India has finally come full circle and how the series is still relevant. Listen in:
All of you are suddenly in demand for commemorative shows on 25 years of India’s first soap opera. You became India’s first TV stars. How does it feel to be reconciled to your other lives today?
Nagpal: Well, I am still an actor as I was then. Though Basesar Ram was etched in the national consciousness, I never worked for money. It was the challenge of experimenting with a new format of TV drama that was somewhat an extension of theatre. I have even given up my business for nothing and handed it over to my neighbour. My children are settled and along with Kavita, my wife, I am still engrossed in my line of work.
Chaturvedi: I am now a sports commentator and an anchor, something that I have always wanted to be. But people still remember me as the loveable boy of Hum Log, even when my hair has greyed a little. They recognise and love me. So the fame has outlasted our star worth — we got Rs 500 for every episode.
Nagpal: In terms of our legacy, I am very satisfied it is alive. Somebody told me the other day of a phenomenon called Balika Vadhu. So I decided to watch it, liked it. And found out how it had brought the drawing room elite and the masses together. Of how it had cut across segments and smartly wrapped a social message through an addictive entertainment medium called television. Of how it had brought the entire family together in front of the screen. Of how it had convinced the media that a good story is a selling proposition, no matter what the setting or background. Of how content can be very much the king. The show has proved how Bollywoodisation of the small screen hasn’t quite wiped out its character. It further proves that what we set out to do with Hum Log 25 years ago has almost turned full circle. And that there is hope yet that somebody will take off from where we left off.
Television should serve the purpose for which it was set up, to be socially conscious without being preachy, educative, realistic, contemporary, close to the Indian home. Its primary function is penetrating each home with infotainment. Given its reach and hold over national consciousness, programming needs thoughtful packaging, one that stresses on Indian identity. In that sense, Hum Log was an experiment with truth.
How was the show conceived in the first place?
Chaturvedi: A gentleman called Miguel Sabido created the highly successful Mexican television series Ven Conmigo, which used the entertainment-education methodology to connect with the masses. He even created Simple Maria, which was sponsored by Singer, the sewing machine company. The story of Hum Log began in 1977 when David Pointdexter, as president of Population Communications International, suggested the Sabido model to Indian Government officials. Subsequently, many joint workshops later, Pointdexter and Miguel Sabido had a meeting with SS Gill and Mrs Indira Gandhi to discuss the impact of entertainment as a tool of mass education. That’s how Hum Log came to revolve around such issues as family planning, equal status for women and family harmony. Sub-plots concurrently dealt with issues of the day and we had a living TV drama.
Nagpal: We need to thank SS Gill, then secretary, Information and Broadcasting. It was his brainwave to pick up the format and leave the execution to the best people of the time like P Kumar Vasudev, our director, and more importantly Manohar Shyam Joshi, our finest writer and a gem unlike the pen-pushers of today. Can you name any serial from among the hundreds that jostle for space among competing channels today whose writer you remember? The producer is the brand today. Joshiji was our brand, a fact that he lived up to with another mammoth saga, Buniyaad, a satire like Kakaji Kahin and a comedy like Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen Sapne, all prime time drivers of their time. Whatever he touched was a classic. Filmmakers like Ramesh Sippy courted him.
What worked for Hum Log?
Nagpal: It was a universal story that touched the core of Indian emotion and ethos. The story was as real as a low middle class boy falling in love with a rich girl. It was aspirational, there was no romanticising of the middle class. The characters were somebody you always knew existed in your family and neighbourhood, unchanging and human. They were not black or white but travelled the many shades of grey in between. The thinkers, conceptualisers and writers of the show were slightly pro-Left, so they had a larger vision and a better understanding of their milieu. That is why you could relate to the dialogue and sentiment.
Basically, you are saying that you had a cinematic approach...
Nagpal: We had a 30-page script, with taut instructions down to the last detail, which had to be executed in 24 minutes. Joshiji would say, “Never discard any of my words” and would recycle the edited parts in a later episode. It was difficult to leave out these details, so intrinsically wound they were to the drama. The macro and the micro stories were beautifully welded together. And every character was justified, delved into, fleshed out, given character. Imagine, doing justice to around 200 artistes.
Just the other day, somebody gave me only four pages of script. Little wonder then there is no progression or drama in the story, just cardboard characters who don’t grow and mature even after hundreds of episodes, killing drama in the process. What are you supposed to learn of a character in four pages? The rest of it was all music, nonsensical interludes and character treatments. I honestly feel today’s producers and directors call actors for some sensational actions and reactions and use them according to the emotion of the day. They get their job done cheap, and that is the end of it. People have often criticised Hum Log for its pace. Well, we talked and raced compared to some of today’s episodes, which pan across the actors from various angles amid loud music, expecting us to understand the implication of the one or two lines that they may have to utter in each segment. We had a movement, a lead-in to the next episode through the interactive epilogue with Ashok Kumar whereas today a dramatic sequence may be stretched over four days. Even the television industry in the West works on a solid script. Foreign producers spend around two years building their scripts for documentaries, leave alone stories. Once I got to work for this documentary called Jai Singh, The Astronomer King where I was narrator. The makers got access to archives that the Jaipur royals didn’t know existed. You can imagine the amount of labour they put in.
How was the crew assembled?
Nagpal: It was largely theatre people who were picked up through the “Do you know somebody who fits the bill?” sort of way. I remember we had this party at Siddhartha Hotel at Rajendra Place where we were assigned our roles. Then we began our rehearsals here at Himachal Bhavan. We chose this venue because NSD was nearby, so every time a new character was developed, we wouldn’t have to go far in search of an actor.
Chaturvedi: The great part about the casting was that Joshiji first acquainted himself with each of our personal traits and incorporated them into the character we were playing. He knew I liked cricket and was good at mimicry. And he invested Nanhe with those naughty trademarks.
How did you gel with each other as an ensemble? Wasn’t it difficult?
Nagpal: For the two years that it took to can 156 episodes of Hum Log, we performed ably because we became a real family. To connect on screen, we had to strike chemistry offscreen. I knew Nanhe from childhood; I knew his father, cricket commentator Ravi Chaturvedi. We all went to the same school and college. Abhinav began to call me Baba thereafter. We shared camaraderie during rehearsals, which began at 2 pm and ended at 5 pm at Himachal Bhavan over plenty of chai and pakoras. Then we would all drive to the studio in Gurgaon, which was really a village then and had just one eatery that made dosas. We would shoot an episode between 8 pm and midnight. The technical staff of Doordarshan moonlighted after work hours. Nothing could be done before that.
Chaturvedi: At 5 pm, seniors like Baba (Vinod) and Sushmaji would leave by car. We youngsters (I was 21) would follow them in a matador and rehearse our lines along the way.
Nagpal: Those days, I was staying at Kashmere Gate and Seema Bhargava (Badki) was staying at Daryaganj. Since the car couldn’t get into her alley, I would walk her to her doorstep at night. We looked out for each other all the time. And the juniors gave us respect. So we could give each other cues, knew how to move instinctively within the four-camera format.
Chaturvedi: Asif Sheikh (Kamya’s boyfriend in the show) and I would get dropped off last. Since his father used to work in the railways, we would have egg paranthas at New Delhi railway station and then go home. I would be up and about by 7 am because my first class at St Stephen’s College was at 8:15 am. My teacher William Ramsingh Rajpal was a disciplinarian. And he would warn me, “You may be doing a serial but that doesn’t concern the college.” My last lecture would end at 12:50. I would bike it back home, have lunch, change shirts and rush out by 1:40 pm. But the privilege of working with veterans for novices like me was worth the pain.
Nagpal: Somehow everybody took me to be a patriarch who would fight for their rights in real life. It wasn’t a lavish production. I have done 156 episodes with two trousers, two shirts and a vest with a pocket. I got my own kurta pyjama from home. The food was nothing great. So P Kumar Vasudev would tell me, “Jawaan, do something about the food.” The rest would plead, “Dad, dekho na aaj khana kya hai?” They knew I would create a ruckus and they would get a quality meal. We were so close-knit that an episode involving family members would be wrapped up in two hours. But it took up to six hours to can an episode involving outsiders. Unconsciously, we probably alienated them a little (laughs).
Chaturvedi: I was obsessed with method acting those days and asked Baba to slap me real hard during a take. He hit me so hard that I bled. And he had tears in his eyes. For days after that, he was very protective about me.
Nagpal: Today’s actors have vanity vans and don’t even rehearse in a group. They have diet biscuits, come and do their lines which aren’t many anyway, padded as they are up by music, reactions and other dough. Then they are back in their van.
Chemistry was one part. What did it take to have a nation in thrall?
Nagpal: Real emotion and performers who could carry it through. We wore no make-up compared to the glamorous TV stars of today. Only dadi needed a little makeup to look her age. This on-screen ordinariness helped us connect with the viewer readily. Even if you consider the example of Balika Vadhu, know that we get drawn into it because of the commendable performance of the dadi played by Surekha Sikri. What an exemplary artiste! She single-handedly overshadows the teary-eyed child protagonist (who’s allowed no other expression) and the rest of the ensemble with her conflicts, her frailties, her triumphs, her guilt. She could be a matriarch in your home and mine.
I understand that there was no fancy infrastructure or equipment then. How then did you manage to can three episodes a week with such rapidity?
Chaturvedi: There was no option but to work within your limits. We had limited studio space and coordinated our moves within the camera arc. The technical staff would check on the lights available that day and decide which portion would be shot. Kumar sahib was very intuitive and could speedily change camera with our movements. He would say, “Insert dalo, cut karo, aage chalo.” He would cram about four pages in a shot. We would have to plead with him to allow us a tea break. But I understood his compulsion for running at breakneck speed — the studio those days charged Rs 20,000 for one shift. We had to limit cost overruns.
Nagpal: Why bother about these details? Because the impact of Hum Log was enormous despite the methods. It created the 9 pm prime time bandwidth around which families worked out their dinner. About 90 per cent people watched it in north India while 20 to 45 per cent people watched it in the south, breaking the myth that the South shut itself off from the telecast because of its predominantly North Indian flavour. Subsequent sub-plots attempted mainstreaming, including a Tamil and Bengali family. Ninety six per cent of respondents, who had watched at least one episode, liked it. Around 60 million people watched it before TAM became a reality. In fact, Insat 1B and the Low Power Transmitters (LPTs) widened the communicative audience. Doordarshan is free-to-air and can be accessed in remote villages thanks to the LPTs, which are cheaper than satellite TV and a permanent investment in networking. Therefore, you cannot measure Hum Log’s reach in terms of TRPs. It forced the Hindi film industry to sit up and take note of the potential of TV because their 9 to 12 midnight shows went empty, they were badly hit. Mahesh Bhatt went on record saying he didn’t know television had this power.
The industry too joined the bandwagon. Along with Hum Log, there was the sleek Karamchand, the corporate saga of Khandaan, the comedy of Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and the humane world of Nukkad, all coming out of big studios. Then there was Ramanand Sagar’s epic Ramayana on Sundays. Big directors, writers, everybody got into the game in this healthy competition between Delhi and Mumbai. We were the pioneers, then lived through the competition. It was after Hum Log that Ramesh Sippy did his Sholay act for television with Buniyaad, where both of us featured again.
I remember RK Laxman had done this cartoon of a politician blustering at his rally manager: “Why organise my rally during Hum Log time?” Then Sudhir Dar did a cartoon of a sweaty family under a fan shedding copious tears with the punchline, “Poor things, they didn’t know Hum Log would end so soon.”
When did you become aware that television could give you stardom too?
Chaturvedi: After the 12th episode, the younger lot — Rajesh, Divya, Loveleen, Seema and I — went to Palika Bazaar for a small break. We were mobbed within 10 minutes.
Nagpal: I remember the Bappi Lahiri night at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. Dadamuni (Ashok Kumar) was compering the show. And every big name, be it BR Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt, Raj Babbar, Smita Patil and Shatrughan Sinha, was there. The crowd cheered them but the moment we went on stage, everybody stood up and clapped wildly. This ovation was a shock for the film industry.
Chaturvedi: I remember being mobbed at Vaishno Devi. It was such a hit in the North that I contemplated taking a vacation down South. There too, I was surrounded by the ground staff the moment my aircraft landed. That’s when I realised that Hum Log had broken the linguistic barrier.
Nagpal: We got letters from the South saying we had done for Hindi what the Government had not been able to do for 20 years.
Was the serial planned for 156 episodes?
Nagpal: The bureaucracy thought in multiples of 13. That is why it ended at 156.
If it was so popular, why wasn’t it continued?
Nagpal: Because Doordarshan couldn’t be seen as appearing to be playing favourites and assigning work to one person. Buniyaad ended for the same reason.
What about private sponsorships?
Nagpal: It wasn’t like Hum Log didn’t make business sense. The sales of Maggi 2-Minute Noodles, one of our sponsors, shot up during the show. This brings me to the other deciding factor of changing television in India — the brand strength of the sponsors. There’s a reason why bigness and grandeur — even in Balika Vadhu, the sets are ostentatious and the costume and jewellery are objects of desire —- have become a part of storylines today. Reality is cosmetic because channels get money for their productions from big brand advertisements of upmarket products, not everyday noodles and milk supplements. If you have a fancy shampoo and an age-defying face cream as your sponsors, you cannot have ordinary faces in these soap operas, which they are funding only with a purpose of selling their products. Through these serials, they are hoping to convince viewers to buy their products. So, you see, the maker is often compelled to gloss things over.
One very positive change that all this has brought about is a rise in aspirations, particularly in rural India. However, these aspirations are often very unrealistic in nature. What is demanded for the poor, first and foremost is, education and not the values of a Fair & Lovely. You are making these underprivileged and vulnerable girls aspire for a face that they can never acquire with the meagre means they own.
Hasn’t the audience profile also changed? Are we as discerning?
Nagpal: Agreed that in these stressful, 24X7, deadline-driven times, the target audience demand has changed. The thaka maanda aadmi (worn out individual) does not want to think at the end of a working day, he is looking for instant gratification and masala fare. But he would be relaxed enough to go to a multiplex over the weekend. This explains why the thinking space of television has now moved over to the film industry. The independent film movement, which works without big budgets, is bringing out diverse quality fare. Films like Dev D and Manorama Six Feet Under force you to think out of the box. Today’s television doesn’t want you to think. Why? Because, a “thinking” audience can never be so foolish as to believe they will become fair in a week’s time if they use a Fair & Lovely.
There was a time when tele-films were conceived as a vehicle for fresh ideas in film-making though the television industry couldn’t capitalise on it thanks to the monopoly of bureaucracy in the pre-satellite era. In that interregnum, TV killed some of its own best ideas. But there is hope yet. Every cycle reaches its nadir and the glut of reality shows indicates that even filmi storylines are beginning to lose their sheen. People want their stories again. We can once again get the team of Hum Log together. I am ready to take the responsibility of heading this family and encourage the future generation to take charge after me. Talent isn’t dead, we just need a thinking producer.
You both have done films after Hum Log and Buniyaad. But didn’t quite continue in the industry. Why? You were certainly better placed than most.
Nagpal: That’s because both of us had seen stardom and realised that there was no scope for us beyond character roles in films. My first commercial venture after Hum Log was Subhash Ghai’s Karma. I had this scene with Dilip Kumar where I played the minister and he a simple inspector. Decorum demands that the cop stand in attendance while the politician sits on a chair. Dilipji did point out the anomaly but Subhashji said, “Sirji people are going to spend money to look at you, not him.” An actor acts but a star doesn’t need to act. He just needs to show his face. And TV actors then weren’t cinematic unlike today, what they call the chikna types. Abhinav didn’t come in that category, he was too thin. So his maiden film as hero bombed.
Chaturvedi: Shah Rukh Khan is the only example of a TV actor who did an Amitabh Bachchan.
Nagpal: But he had a godfather in Aziz Mirza.
Didn’t you have Ramesh Sippy on your side?
Nagpal: Immediately after Buniyaad, he made a film called Bhrashtachar where both of us had roles. But his attitude and priority towards us changed after Buniyaad. We were the main actors in the serial. In the film, a veteran actor like Rekha was waiting for the hero, Mithun Chakraborty, to appear. Mithun would not walk in before 5 pm and Rekha would come at 8 am, do her make-up and keep waiting.
So you came back to where you began, theatre. Would you say theatre as an art form is vibrant today, has potential still?
Nagpal: With TV serials guaranteeing better pay, we lost a lot of talent to Mumbai. But now, there’s a renewed interest in drama as an art form. There was a time when I would rehearse for months and find only about six persons in the auditorium. Today, youngsters crowd the aisles. This is a positive sign. Organisations like Spic Macay have kept our native art forms alive in schools and colleges and adapted their formats to changing times, corporates are sponsoring theatre festivals and there’s a visible cultural renaissance.
Chaturvedi: I think old values are coming back. So many parents come to me and say they want their children to learn the right way, to imbibe the theory. Because without mastering the basics, they can’t reinterpret the classics.
-- Copyright: Namaskaar, Air India’s inflight magazine
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