Why Indian TV is all about naagins and makhhis

On any regular day at the ministry of information and broadcasting, the complaints received from viewers about objectionable content usually relate to obscenity, violence and crime. But this time, and apparently for the first time ever, more than half the complaints are against TV shows whose primary genres are horror and occult.

The toll, according to a report in The Telegraph — more than 1,230 of 1,850 — has prompted the ministry to ask the Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BARC), its TV viewership agency, to look into the matter.

The complaints are against Kavach - Kaali Shaktiyon Se and Sasural Simar Ka airing on Colors and Brahmrakshas on Zee TV.

Not surprisingly, data from BARC shows that the tele-dramas are, at the moment, among the most popular in the General Entertainment Channel (GEC) space.

This is precisely why TV channels are unlikely to do anything about it. Their defence: audiences are loving it and lapping it up. The trend was started by none other than industry mogul Ekta Kapoor, whose Balaji Telefilms tied up with Colors to launch Naagin in November last year.

A weekend show, Naagin is a revenge saga featuring two snakes, Shesha and Shivanya. The plot is centred on how one of them is trying to avenge the death of her parents. According to data from BARC, apart from the initial few weeks, it remained the No 1 show on Indian TV's fiction space for its entire run. The first season ended in May 2016, and the next is slated to start soon.

Even before Naagin premiered, Colors already had a hit show in Sasural Simar Ka in which several subplots related to daayans (witches) and naagins had already found success. Buoyed by the success of Naagin on the same channel, Sasural... then introduced a supernatural twist with a makhhi (mosquito). The floodgates opened. While many jokes and memes were circulated, the fact was everyone was talking about the show.

Tapping into the genre’s building popularity, Ekta replaced Naagin (it was intended as a finite season-based show from day one) with Kavach - Kaali Shaktiyon Se on Colors, starring the effervescent Mona Singh who went from the simpleton Jassi in Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin to Paridhi, whose love acts as a kavach that guards her husband from an evil spirit.

However, Kavach didn’t meet with the same success as Naagin, going by the data from BARC, and Ekta was obviously already working on Naagin 2 (premiering soon).

Around the time, Ekta also collaborated with Zee TV and launched Brahmrakshas — Jaag Utha Shaitaan — loosely based on Beauty and the Beast and the film Jaani Dushman.

India has always loved the supernatural: be it in films or in popular culture, anything related to the out-of-the-ordinary is readily consumed.

Let’s look at some of the shows that milked the supernatural theme way before ichhadari naagins and makkhis came into our world.

As far back as I can remember, Vikram Aur Betaal on Doordarshan was one of the first few shows that mixed folklore with the supernatural.

Launched in 1985, it was based on Baital Pachisi, a collection of tales about the legendary King Vikram and the Vaitaala, a ghost similar to a vampire. Each episode revolved around a story the ghost would tell the King, perched on the latter's back. The ghost would then ask the King a question and if it was answered correctly, he would fly away.

The Ramsay Brothers launched Zee Horror Show (1993-1997), but with their production values being what they were, the show was hilarious rather than scary. Then came Chandrakanta (1994), an Indian fantasy series loosely based on Devaki Nandan Khatri’s novel of the same name.

Originally about a princess, it had plotlines revolving around jadoo-tona, and a villain in the form of Kroor Singh/Yakoo, and was rather successful.

A year later, in 1995, Balaji Telefilms launched Mano Ya Na Mano, a horror TV series on Zee TV with episodes that had names like Kaal Sarp. The snake theme has obviously festered in Ekta’s brain for years now.

But the big one was Sony’s Aahat. The series that premiered on Sony on October 12, 1995 enjoyed a 20-year-run with some 550 episodes and six seasons. It was created by BP Singh (who eventually created CID, another long-running show on the same channel) and starred names such as Om Puri, Mandira Bedi, Tom Alter and Ashutosh Rana.

The horror show featured different stories in each episode.

The next decade continued with the theme. Star Plus launched Ssshhhh...Koi Hai in 2001 (it later moved to Star One, and had a run of nine years), a fictional horror show with a ghostbuster, wizards, zombies, and haunted houses - all this with modern characters in urban settings.

There have been several more, some exploring daunting tales from the depths of India. Doordarshan, for example, had Honee Anhonee, where each episode told an incredible story. One particular episode that I remember featured a boy who accurately recounted his past life and led his folks to the house he had lived in, in his previous birth.

In 2003, Sony had a show called Sambhav Asambhav, which explored the reincarnation theme and was based on a Gujarati novel that dwelt on the lives of those who get caught in the cycle of rebirth. Mano Ya Na Mano reprised the theme in 2006, with episodes helmed by Irrfan Khan.

The writing on the TV screen has been etched well — then or now, supernatural sells.

Also read - Why watching Indian TV sucks