At a time when it seems that people in power are not ready to listen to any kind of criticism, director Ashwni Dhir has come up with a political satire, Har Shakh Pe Ullu Baitha Hai (HSPUBH) . Set in a fictional Ulta Pradesh, the series follows the adventures of a corrupt chief minister and his family. “When conventional wisdom suggests that it is a wrong time to indulge in something, it is actually the right time. Today, politics has become entertainment and news channels are rivalling general entertainment channels. But the credit goes not just to me. It was the channel (StarPlus) that showed the guts to put something like this on air.”
Ashwni is quick to clarify that the series is not a reflection of the present dispensation. “The material has come from 70 years of governance or misgovernance. And it is a novel attempt because nobody has done it before.” Ashwni holds that apart from Basu Chatterjee’s Kakkaji Kahin , there has been no credible example of a political satire in general entertainment space. “In films, we all know what happened to Kissa Kursi Ka.” One reminds him of Ji Mantriji , which also appeared on Star Plus. “That was an adaptation of Yes, Minister and was too niche for lay audience. HSPUBH is rooted in small town India where corruption has become a way of life.”
With his big family, where each member is named after a political event, the central character Chaitu Lal (Rajiv Nigam) reminds of Lalu Prasad Yadav but Ashwni claims that it is not based on any one single person. “Chaitu Lal could be any political figure who wants to use public money for his own good.”
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The family, he says, has been woven into the narrative because television is family medium where women constitute a large number of audience. “For long, politics is seen as a male subject which is not fair.” The series reflects how corruption percolates down to the youngest member of the family. “The boy doesn’t know that going to school in his father’s official vehicle with a red beacon is wrong. This is how corruption spreads in our society. If he is not told at a young age, he will justify it later.” The real life, he says, offers enough material to play with. “There is an episode where Chaitu Lal wants to take his family on a foreign trip but he can’t take all of them along officially. So he comes up with ideas like study tours on understanding of the management mega sports events. It is something that we read about in newspapers all the time.”
Written by Ashwni himself, the series also shows the deliberate intermingling of religion and politics. “You might associate it with Uttar Pradesh because I come from the State but this ‘baba’ culture is mushrooming in most of our states. They are nourished for political purposes.” The title, he says, is a comment not on just the political class but also the general public which votes them to power. There is a character called Janta, who represents the common man. “But he is not like the Common Man of R.K. Laxman, a morally upright silent observer. He is calculative and manipulates to gets his way through.”
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Ashwni emerged on the scene with his hard hitting series Office Office. It has been 17 years, and, he says, not much has changed on the ground. “The only change is that now the world is in our palm and nobody can say he or she doesn’t know the politics of the day. Social media has ensured that our friendships and rivalries are being managed over mobile phones. The message reaches through the crevices of your doors and windows. One Whatsapp message is enough to tell you what’s going on. That’s the biggest change. We are dealing with a more politically aware audience.”
Audience segmentation
Another change that we are observing is the segmentation of audience between digital and analogue media. “I don’t segregate audience. It might be because of my journalism background where you don’t tweak news according to your readership. I write from heart and feel if there is truth in it, it will appeal to a cross section of audience. Because of better quality mobile and internet connectivity, now you can watch shows on the move. I recently took a train journey and was surprised that most of the passengers were watching videos during the journey. Once upon a time people used to carry novels on such journeys.”
Ashwni is now busy writing the sequel of Son of Sardar for Ajay Devgn. Surprisingly in his films, Ashwni stays clear of satire. “I tried it in Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge . But yes, I agree socio-political satire is something that I haven’t tried. I know it is my strength but producers are wary of trying something like this. The day I start producing my films, I would love to exploit this space.”