Jo-jo life mein hota hai, we get to watch on TV. And jo-jo TV mein hota hai, we try to recreate in our own lives. Soon after Anna Hazare was done wagging his finger at desh ke rakhwale from Jantar Mantar, Aamir Khanji arrived on the telly to continue the wagging. Tulsi, Parvati were ideals bahus, running hare-bhare homes. And so we started wearing ulte-palle ki saris and keeping all sorts of fasts.
Now it’s the turn of rape. After the December 2012 New Delhi gang rape, it was inevitable that rape will make a comeback as a plot device. And it has. Ek Hasina Thi is supposed to be a progressive, modern, empowering tale of a rape victim. It is not. It is Khoon Bhari Mang meets Damini, without the court room drama.
Here too, as is always the case, the victim is being avenged by another, not through the legal process, but through intrigue, conspiracy, deception. Nothing illegal, just extra-judicial.
The story goes something like this: In Calcutta live the richie-rich Goenkas, i.e. Sakshi Goenka, Rajnath Goenka, and their criminal betaji, Shaurya Goenka. Shaurya thinks that he can get away with rape and he does. He and three of his friends raped Payal and reduced her to a scared, shaking bechari. But there was a feisty eyewitness, Divya, who, with her dad, was all ready to testify. So Papa Goenka set goons after father-daughter. They beat Divya’s dad blind, while Divya went lapata.
But there was another young girl, Nitya, Payal’s sister. She too became their victim and had her face crushed in an accident.
That Nitya, post plastic surgery, is Durga, having been adopted by the doctor who saved her, and it’s Durga who is now out to avenge her sister’s rape. Durga is pretty and shrewd. Slowly-slowly, like in a game of chess, she is going for the queen, king and the duffer vazir. It’s a tried and tested plot, one that I’m acquainted with since the Eighties (The Other Side of Midnight), but one that still holds a lot of potential. But the problem here is that there is no thrill in this thriller. Ek Hasina Thi follows the silly, repetitive, “Oh, I’m so shocked by what you have said/may say, that I’ll look at you again and again, till the ad break” style of saas-bahu serials, and every teeny-weeny thing gets dragged for a week, making the eventual revenge very thakela.
Till the serial’s hasina gets some spunk and executes some high-spirited revenge, watching this serial will feel like watching a real-time chess championship.
