I have been busy with work and personal matters so haven’t had a chance to blog much lately. But I would like to revisit childhood and growing up during the 80s in Bombay. After the earlier incident where a friend of mine transferred to another school due to a minor misdemeanour. You can read about it here.

                       My parents also decided to shift me and my brother to a better school. I still remember the day when my Dad informed us that we would have a surprise trip the next day. It was summer vacation time and we thought that we were going out to the beach or possibly going to a movie. The next morning Mom got both of us ready for the important trip. Dad asked us to get in the car and started driving without telling us where we were headed. He was really happy but didn’t want to disclose the purpose of our trip yet. After driving for about 30 minutes Dad parked the car in front of a building which looked like a school.

              He then asked us to step out of the car and started walking toward the gate. That’s when he gave a big smile and said – “This is your new school!!”.  Both – me and my brother were ecstatic about it since this place had a big playground and was surrounded by beautiful trees. I immediately looked up and noticed the name of our school – “Gandhi Shikshan Bhavan“. The school was located in a very peaceful surrounding away from city traffic and noise. 

              We went in and met the principal who was a very nice, old lady. She cordially invited us into her office and asked a few questions. Later we took a quick tour of the school and were delighted to see how big it was compared to our previous school. It was a wonderful trip and we couldn’t wait to join the new school.

     Here’s a simple example – actually a comparison between 2 extremes. A poor labourer whose only goal is to earn enough so that he can get through today. At the other end is a multimillionaire business tycoon who has all the luxuries in life. The labourer works hard all day and when he earns his daily wage at the end of the day he’s satisfied. He has a nice meal and as night falls he is so tired that he can easily sleep by the roadside without being bothered by the traffic on the streets. He has no worries since he has no worldly aspirations.

              On the other end the businessman is travelling all over the globe for business meetings and presentations in order to further enhance his empire. In spite of having more than he could have imagined he strives for more. Due to this he cannot relax and can barely sleep for a few hours even though he has the most comfortable bed that money can buy. Along with that his health also suffers as he has high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes. He has a wife and kids but he barely spends time with them since he’s always so busy with his work and travels.

                               I realize that most people fall somewhere in between the 2 extremes I’ve given above. But my point is that we attach so much importance to wealth and materialism that we forget the simple pleasures of life. Spending time with family and friends brings the most joy. We all should be thankful for what we have.

Lastly, I would like to say that peace of mind is usually achieved by prayers and being close to God. It definitely works for me and I think it would for most people if you tried it with true faith and dedication.

This serial was set in India during the partition era, it had an ensemble cast which including actors like Kiran Juneja, Soni Razdan, Dalip Tahil, Kanwaljeet, Vijendra Ghatge, Mazhar Khan, Alok Nath and Anita Kanwar. This serial launched the television career of Alok Nath and Kanwaljeet.

I can remember names of some characters like Masterji (Alok Nath), Lajoji (Anita Kanwar), and Veerawali (Kiran Juneja).

Khandaan

 This serial was about 2 rich families going at each other in business and personal lives. It had interesting characters with grey shades and the story moved at a decent pace. Some of the actors that I can remember are Neena Gupta, Mohan Bhandari and Jayant Kripalani. I couldn’t find much information about it and hopefully someone may have access to some old clips.

I do remember somewhat vaguely that this was telecast midweek – most likely on Wednesdays at 9 PM. It was the first serial at the time to delve into corporate life and the lifestyle of business tycoons along with their problems. Neena Gupta was one of the main protagonists on the show.

This one had Pankaj Kapur (father of today’s budding star – Shahid Kapoor) in the title role, playing a detective with a love for carrots.  It had cult lines like – “Sir, you’re a genius” and “Shut up, Kitty”. Kitty was played by Sushmita Mukherjee, she was the bumbling secretary of detective.

Pankaj Kapur’s first reaction when asked to act in Karamchand, India’s first television whodunit in 1985, was, “Who wants to do television?” A trained actor from National School of Drama with eight films behind him, including Gandhi and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, television wasn’t a preferred creative destination. “But I had no money left in the bank,” confesses Kapur. “The movies I had done previously paid me Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 and surviving in an expensive city like Mumbai was getting difficult. And I was too old [31 then] to call my dad in Ludhiana asking for money.”

So Kapur accepted the role of a carrot-nibbling detective, dark sunglasses perched on his nose, only to become a gripping success within six months. Carrot sales shot up just like spinach among tots emulating Popeye, dark glasses were worn even at dinner parties, and Kapur got his first taste of fame. “I experienced the popularity of a big star for those six months,” recalls Kapur. People still remember Karamchand’s pony-tailed ditzy and chatty secretary Kitty’s punch line: “Sir, you are a genius.”

Nukkad

This serial highlighted the plight of youth struggling to make ends meet and the characters would get together at local street corner (Nukkad) where they shared their stories. It had an interesting mix of characters played by talented actors. The story was simple and people would sympathize with the characters who smiled even in face of hardships.

The serial was directed by Saeed Mirza and written by Prabodh Joshi. It had a good title song as well which went like this -

“Shaher Shaher ki ek gali mein basa hua hai Nukkad

Nukkad ke saare bashinde takdiron se phakkad

Alag alag tasweer hai inki

Alag alag hai boli

Apne Apne dhande inke

Apni apni toli

Ajab tamasha hai ye nagri jis mein hanste gaate hain

Apni barbadi ka yaaron ye to jashn manate hain”

In this post I’ll try to present a brief summary of the popular serials along with Youtube links if I can find them -

Hum Log

The serial started way back in 1984 and became immensely popular due to the story and characters. It was a simple story of a middle class Indian family and their daily struggles. Some of the memorable characters were -

Dadi – played by Sushma Seth

Basesar Ram – played by Vinod Nagpal

Lallu – played by Rajesh Puri

Nanhe – played by Abhinav Chaturvedi

Badki – Seema Bhargava

Chutki – Loveleen Mishra

Everyone used to really enjoy watching Ashok Kumar at the end of every episode where he would summarize the show in his unique style using Hindi couplets. He ended his summary with the line – “Agli kisht mein phir dekhenge Hum Log”, which means – “We’ll watch the story unfold in the next installment”.

Here’s a link with the actors after 25 years – amazing – Watch and Enjoy!!

Ye Jo Hai Zindagi -

How can one forget one of the best Indian comedy serials – we used to be glued to the TV and would never miss any episode. The main characters in the show were -

Ranjeet – played by Shafi Inamdar

Renu – Swaroop Sampat

Raja – Rakesh Bedi

and the great comedian – Satish Shah in a variety of characters

Here’s a quick summary -

“The episodes revolved around funny happenings in the lives of Ranjit Verma (played by actor Shafi Inamdar) and Renu Verma (played by actress Swaroop Sampat, a former Miss India 1979), who play a married couple along with Renu’s unmarried & unemployed younger brother Raja (Rakesh Bedi). Other characters were Ranjit’s boss (actor Tikku Talsania), his Bengali neighbours (actors Vijay Kashyap and Sulabha Arya), etc.

A trademark of the show were the characters played by comedy actor Satish Shah. In each episode, Shah played a different character who come into contact with Ranjit & Renu’s world. These characters would be regular people like a plumber or repair guy, a prospective servant, someone from the street who wants to use their bathroom, etc. Shah played these characters exceedingly well using unique mannerisms & accents from all over India and had other affectations which kept the audience enraptured. During the mid-1980s Satish Shah was anointed as “King of Comedy” by the entertainment media as a direct consequence of the multitude characters that he effortlessly played on the show”

Here’s a link -