Of padosi politics

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Yeh jo life hai na life, it’s very, very short. And when, in this short life, koi aise cheez aati hai jo dil ko touch kar jaye, it becomes BPHD — Bahut Pyaari, Hamari Dulari. And that is why when someone messes around with our BPHDs, they cannot escape Bhagwan and TRPs ka prakop.

Jaise every nubile nymphet who heaves her bosom to dhak-dhak is not Madhuri Dixit, and every lanky lambu who drinks bhang is not AB, vaise hi Kuch Toh Log Kahenge (Sony) is just a thakeli and thanda copy of our BPHD — Dhoop Kinare.
Ab zara pause mariye and sochiye: Kya Bharat desh mein all saas-bahus have become best friends? Is every beendani sleeping peacefully with her beend? Is every simpering thing in ghaghra safe from Thakurs? Nahin na, then why have our TV geniuses turned their attention to this 25 saal purana gem we got from our Pakistani bhai-behen?
If you are meri tarah intelligent, khubsoorat and of a certain vintage, you would have surely rented VHS tapes and watched Dhoop Kinare. If you are not, then, well, so sorry.
Anyway, Dr Ahmer Ansari (Rahat Kazmi) was our thinking, hurting, Amitabh Bachchan; the Zanzeer variety whose eyes didn’t smile. And we were all Dr Zoya Khan (Marina Khan); silly, funny and madly in love with the much older Dr Ahmer. He was the man Indian middle class women lusted after. And in large part the credit goes to Haseena Moin’s brilliant writing and Sahira Kazmi’s sensitive direction and discerning casting. As required, we hated Dr Sheena, and adored Baba, Fasee, Anji and, of course, Dr Irfan. We lived with them, laughed with them and wept with them. Many lives would have turned out differently if Zoya hadn’t got Ahmer in the end. She did. And we have since been looking for our Ahmer.
And what do we get after so many years. Mohnish Behl? Hello? Can anyone lust after him? Koi hai? No. And that roly poly Kritika Kamra may be wholesome and fulsome, but she doesn’t have even a hint of liberation and charm that Dr Zoya flaunted just in her crazy haircut.
So why then this daily waterboarding in the guise of Kuch Toh Log...? Mujhe khufia sources se pata laga hai that this is a saazish. Hamare external affairs walle babus and mantris have failed so miserably in getting even a “sorry bhai” letter from their Pakistani counterparts that they have now decided to employ this episodic torture. The idea is to annoy and irritate Pakistani people and hukumat so that they will sign anything, return everything and jail anybody just to make us stop.
Arre, maine Kuch Toh Log... ke three episodes dekhe and I was ready to say Ok, Tata to this world. So I went to YouTube and started watching Dhoop Kinare. Twenty-five years on, I’m still hooked.