{"id":20142,"date":"2011-03-26T12:25:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T12:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=20142"},"modified":"2011-03-26T12:25:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T12:25:59","slug":"the-man-who-makes-soap-froth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-man-who-makes-soap-froth\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who makes soap froth"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last decade, scriptwriter\u00a0Rajesh Joshi<\/strong>\u00a0 has written India\u2019s most popular television shows. He tells \u00a0<\/em>Aastha Atray Banan\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>how his work will change the world<\/em>
\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo: MS Gopal<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIN 2001<\/strong>, writer Rajesh Joshi killed Mihir Virani in\u00a0Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.<\/em>\u00a0Housewives across the country cried rivers. Amar Upadhyay, the actor who played Mihir, was flooded with calls checking if he was alive. \u201cI found Amar standing at my door. He said, \u2018Look at the way India has reacted,\u2019\u201d remembers Joshi. Voila, Joshi invented the reincarnation formula! \u201cWe brought Mihir back,\u201d he says, knowing his decision marked the genesis of the Great Indian Soap. Joshi was no one-hit wonder. He then wrote\u00a0Kasautii Zindagii Kay, Kkusum, Koi Apna Sa and Bandini,<\/em>\u00a0and today, writes the reigning winner \u2014\u00a0Pavitra Rishta<\/em>, Balaji\u2019s trump card on Zee TV.
\nSitting in his Kandivili home in a leather recliner against the background of a wooden Ajanta-Elloraesque mural, Joshi has an air of knowing amusement. With\u00a0Pavitra Rishta<\/em>, Joshi has once again set new rules. Gone are the opulent settings. Inspired by his chawl days in Bhuleshwar, the story is about the undying love of a poor couple sans the\u00a0jhataak<\/em>\u00a0clothes and rich families. With a TRP of 6.1, highest among all soaps, the show has turned its protagonists into small screen\u2019s Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif.
\nJoshi, 50, hadn\u2019t even imagined he would end up writing. Son of Mansukh Joshi, who co-founded the Indian National Theatre, he says, \u201cThe atmosphere was there, but I ended up working with a pharma company.\u201d And then in August 1999, a car accident confined him to bed for three months. But life was to change soon. Before he knew it, he was writing\u00a0Kyunki…<\/em>\u00a0\u201cVipul Mehta, who co-wrote\u00a0Kyunki…<\/em>\u00a0with me, suggested I try my hand at writing. I didn\u2019t have anything to do, so I said okay. I decided I would continue writing if it worked. The gamble paid off,\u201d he says.
\nIt\u2019s easy to see why it did. Joshi is a writer who believes in a simple diktat: write what and who you know about. There are joint families, similar to his own Gujarati background, and his central women figures \u2014 mild yet strong, strict yet loving \u2014 are much like his own mother and wife. \u201cMy mother was the matriarch of the family. She had a rough hand with us but loved us too. I used to trust her instincts when I was younger, now I trust my wife\u2019s. I usually do what she says,\u201d he smiles. \u201cAnd it\u2019s obvious that my characters are like them \u2014 the VIPs.\u201d And surprisingly progressive for Indian entertainment as they have taken harsh decisions. \u201cPeople need jerks in a story that may not always be appreciated. But writers need resistance. In\u00a0Pavitra<\/em>…, the duo get married, divorced and marry again. A character gets an abortion as she would rather choose her career. I keep up with the times.\u201d
\nBut that\u2019s where a paradox creeps in and suddenly, Joshi appears like an onion without a skin. Though he admires the ambitious middle-class woman as she exists today, he wishes she would imbibe the\u00a0\u201cideal bahu\u201d<\/em>\u00a0traits from his Tulsi or Archana. So is he just making them progressive to cash in on the \u201cscandal\u201d? \u201cMy characters tell their own truth,\u201d he says. And just before you start changing your opinion of him, Joshi adds, \u201cI mean they can be both modern and traditional.\u201d What could also be working for Joshi\u2019s stories is the thin line his characters tread between good and bad. \u201cNo one is bad. Only situations make them bad. Take the character of Ajit, Manav\u2019s sister\u2019s husband in\u00a0Pavitra<\/em>… He rapes Manav\u2019s sister and marries her. But when he loses all his money, he realises his wife is important to him,\u201d says Joshi.<\/p>\n

\u2018Like my shows, my family too lives by a strict moral code. If my son enters a live-in relationship, I will disown him,\u2019 says Joshi<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is at this moment that his 22-year-old son enters the room, and the father in Joshi takes over. He gives him cash and tells him to go and have a good time. Once he leaves, Joshi muses, \u201cI set a strict code of morals for my family. If my son ever entered into a live-in relationship, I would disown him because he is not committing to the girl,\u201d he says, \u201cMy wife married me when I used to earn Rs. 60 a month, and now it\u2019s six figures. She is my heart and soul. I want my son to feel like that about someone.\u201d
\nAlong with relationships, Joshi\u2019s soaps revolve around two important pillars \u2014 karma and the belief in God. But here he surprises us again. Joshi hasn\u2019t been to a temple for months now. \u201cGod is everywhere. When you ask your mother to bless you, she becomes God. And karma is obvious, right? I experience it every day. I borrowed some money from a person a few years ago and forgot to return it. Just recently, I paid him five times that figure!\u201d
\nThe \u2018Rajuisms\u2019 are indeed believable. After all, his success is for everyone to gauge. Even his actors, who have now become stars, thank him. Ankita Lokhande, who plays Archana in\u00a0Pavitra<\/em>…, gushes, \u201cI walk on the road and people recognise me as Archana.\u201d Her co-star, Sushant Singh Rajput, says, \u201cPlaying Manav is a yardstick. I suffer from Manav hangover all day.\u201d Ironically, he was recently caught in a brawl in Mumbai that ended with newspaper headlines claiming he was nothing like the real Manav.
\nThis begs a question. How does Ekta Kapoor, the bold in-your-face woman that we have heard about, agree with all that Archana and Joshi\u2019s other heroines stand for? How does the master producer (she describes Joshi as \u201cone of the best writers on television. It\u2019s like what\u2019s happening in the show is happening in people\u2019s lives\u201d) get convinced that Joshi\u2019s self-sacrificing characters will work with India\u2019s increasingly cynical audiences? \u201cEkta knows women have many shades. She may be nothing like Archana but she knows that Archanas exist. Her observation of the middle-class is astute. She is a businesswoman, so she needs to be strong. But Archana can be milder,\u201d says Joshi.
\nThe writer has now turned producer for Zee\u2019s brand new entrant,\u00a0Sanskaar Lakshmi<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a tale of a village belle who moves to Mumbai with her rich husband\u2019s family, and will now instill\u00a0sanskaar<\/em>\u00a0in each member. If it sounds a bit too much like a rehashed\u00a0Kyunki…,<\/em>Joshi doesn\u2019t care. He says, \u201cI want to prove that even a girl wearing jeans has morals. That\u2019s because having\u00a0sanskaar<\/em>\u00a0doesn\u2019t mean she covers her head. It means keeping everyone happy. Like my other shows, this too will soon change the world!\u201d
\nBanan is Senior Correspondent, Mumbai with Tehelka<\/em>
\naastha@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last decade, scriptwriter Rajesh Joshi has written India\u2019s most popular television shows. He tells AASTHA ATRAY BANAN how his work will change the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":44234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[5725,5923,5924,5925,5926,5927,5928,5929,5930,5827,5931,5932],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}