Actress Ratna Pathak Shah never fails to share a piece of her mind whenever needed. With a fabulous, long-lived career, Pathak-Shah has always broken the rules with her choice of scripts, be it on television or the big screen. Recently talking to Hauterrfly’s The Male Feminist, the actress exclusively spoke about the devolution of daily soaps in India. Citing examples from her own work, the actress talked about her 1985 show–Idhar Udhar.
The comedy sitcom was about three friends living together, which was a concept that came way before Friends. Speaking about the current scripts and flavour of television drama, Shah expressed her disappointment. She further added,If you see Idhar Udhar, the story revolves around two girls and a boy, who were not related to each other, had no sexual tension, it was just about three friends living together, way before Friends came out.” She said–”Exactly what I am saying, today, we’re going backward.”
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Speaking about the shift of scripts in TV, she added–”I was very closely connected to TV and I feel it was a pretty good representation of time. It was a medium that was trying very hard to develop a new language. In today’s comparison even shows like Buniyaad look modern. I mean, I don’t understand how society can or want to move backward.” Well, isn’t she right about it?
I mean if you look at the palette of shows making it big in times today, they all revolve around regressive themes, with less or any factor of relatability. In conversation with Hauterrfly, Pathak-Shah spoke extensively about this reverse evolution, portrayal of women in hindi cinema, marriage and more.