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Over to Sony...

Menka Shivdasani

What can the bosses of channels like Zee and Sony do to counter the runaway success of Kaun Banega Crorepati on Star Plus? When you have Amitabh Bachhan and greed working for your rivals, you had better start praying.

In a sense that is what Sony is doing. With many of its prime time shows being steam-rolled by the KBC-led Star Plus juggernaut, Sony has sought some divine intervention. It is appealing to Shree Ganesh to come to its rescue, in a serial that is titled s imply that -- `Shree Ganesh'!

But, honestly, would you watch a serial about Lord Ganesh -- or any God, for that matter -- when you have the opportunity to win Rs. one crore instead? I mean, I am as devout as the next person, but come on! Sony obviously realises this and has not even attempted to pitch it against KBC. The serial instead will be telecast starting September 24, every Sunday, at 9.00 a.m.

But I suspect Sony is hoping that Lord Ganesh will help them in the several serials it is launching, all of them in the evening prime time slot, where KBC is creating havoc. The new line-up has everything -- humour, pathos, romance, drama -- with so many serials on air, it always intrigues me how they come up with new storylines (Though, of course, if you look closely, many of the concepts are just old ideas recycled.)

There's Haal Kaisa Hai Janab Ka, which seems to be a Hindi rehash of the Carry On Doctor movies. The Imartibai Ghevarmal Memorial Hospital is a bit of a loony bin and everyone from the superintendent down to the ward boys is bent on creating chaos. ``How funny can it get inside a hospital?'' asks Sony, and if you really want to find out, check out the channel every Tuesday at 7.30 p.m.

Then there's Choodiyan (Mondays, 8.00 p.m.), an unusual story about a girl who goes mad, spending all her time collecting bangles. This goes back to the time she had, at age eight, broken all her mother's bangles on what turned out to be the last night o f her mother's life. The mother's angry vow that she would never talk to her again had come bitterly true.

On a more cheerful note is `Yeh Duniya Hai Rangeen' (Mondays, 7.30 p.m.), a comic serial about neighbours living in a chawl which has been reconstructed into a society. The ambience may have changed but the people remain essentially the same, believing i t is their business to know what is happening in the lives of everyone else. A South Indian dancer, whose practice has everyone on edge; a share-broker trying to do a balancing act between his wife, his mother-in-law and his teenage daughter; a dominatin g boss, ``Coolkarni'', who crumples in front of his wife at home ... you will find them all here.

What would television be without a little bit of romance, however? And so, you have Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, a ``romantic soap targeted at all the eternal romantics of the world'' about a vivacious 19-year-old girl who falls in love with an introverted bo y grieving over the deaths of his father and sister in a plane crash. This one is telecast on Thursdays at 9.00 p.m., which is a brave time indeed. But then, true love survives everything, even `Kaun Banega Crorepati'!

Sony is brimming over with love this season; `Milan' is the story of the friendship between two families and a young girl Chanchal, who is caught between family ties and her love. Will Chanchal sacrifice her happiness for her family's sake? Or will she g o back to the man she loves? That's the big question and you will have the answers on Thursdays at 8.00 p.m. just before Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin.

Of course, families are not always worth the sacrifices that are made for them, as Shaheen discovers. `Shaheen' (Thursdays, 8.40 p.m.) is about a young woman in an orthodox family who has to abandon plans of studying further in order to marry a Nawab, wh o turns out not only to be much older than her, but who has a 10-year-old son through a previous marriage -- a fact that her father was aware of and conveniently forgot to mention.

Oh yes, there is the serial about Lord Ganesh. It starts off depicting Lord Ganesh in the original form of Mahaganesha, the creator of the Universe with five faces. Then it goes on to the birth of Ganesh, the transformation into Gajanan -- the elephant-h eaded God, his childhood, his marriage to Riddhi and Siddhi, the Goddesses of wisdom and success, and his recreation into eight main incarnations.

This one ought to be quite widely watched actually, since it does not coincide with KBC. Considering the popularity of Ganesh -- you only have to see the vigour with which the festival is celebrated -- it is surprising no one thought of doing this serial earlier.

But will it catapult Sony into the number one slot? Though Sony is certainly a worthy competitor to Star and Zee, something tells me, there is still a lot of praying to be done...

The author can be contacted at menkashivdasani@hotmail.com