The Hindi film business has long been criticized for lacking originality and heavily drawing its inspiration from Western cinema ideas, which has led to a number of box office disasters. Television appears to be following closely behind, though. It either delivers the standard saas-bahu dramas or the Indian adaptations of popular shows. We speak to an insider in the business to examine the degree to which Indian television has been inspired by foreign shows and whether the practice is harmful for the industry as a whole in light of the ongoing show Tere Pyaar Mein Ghayal becoming the target of trolls for brazenly mimicking Vampire Diaries.
Indian television has always relied on western programming, producing numerous remakes despite their abject failure. To learn the reasons, we speak with the sector.
Filmmaker Lalit Mohan makes the argument that with these shows, we are not even imitating the West but rather lowering the caliber and standards of the original production. “Agar ek student copy karega toh 100 nahi toh 98 toh le aaega. But what the industry is doing, is showing their incompetency with such bad adaptations and remakes. The visual presentation is so weak that you are bound to criticise,” Mohan shares.
However, according to actor Kishwer Merchant, success and failure come much later, and one needs to constantly trying new things. “If we are giving them an adaptation and it is being made well, then there is no problem in it. My show Pyaar Ki Ye Ek Kahaani was not really a copy. It was inspired from The Vampire Diaries and Twilight, and it did really well. They also made the characters very Indian so that people could relate to it,” says the actor, adding, “But some shows work and some don’t. We (Indian TV) are giving the original shows as well but simultaneously, we are trying to experiment, and that’s what’s important.”
In contrast to Mohan's assertions, actor-director Deven Bhojani cites a number of episodes to demonstrate that the Indian television audience has historically been enthusiastic and open to experimentation. “There are shows like Daayan and Naagin, or shows that I have worked on either as an actor or director such as Sara Bhai Vs Sara Bhai, Intant Khichdi, Baa Bahu Aur Baby, which were not adaptations or remakes or for that matter the saas-bahu dramas. These shows worked very well, thereby proving the Indian TV audience is willing to watch something different, given that it’s good,” he wraps up.
Despite this, Das emphasizes that no tale in this universe is unique. “They that say don’t go cliche but I believe in what a famous filmmaker once said - the cliche well done is not a cliche. We say that Shakespeare wrote all forms of stories and we have been reproducing it ever since. But I can say that what he wrote was inspired from Kalidas’s writing. So, we don’t really know what’s original in this world,” he remarks.
However, Mohan thinks that because there is no need for remakes right now, there is no use in continuing to work on them. “OTT is offering such diverse content, including the original shows, so making such adaptations is a waste of time and resources. The audience for which these shows is being made will not sit in front of the television set to watch it at a fixed time. TV ki jo audience hai, unki ek habit hai - to sit in front of the TV to watch the shows at a fixed time. They have a taste in shows that they have developed over 30 years and they won’t watch these youth centric shows,” says Mohan.
In keeping with that, Merchant also addresses the issue of whether producing remakes for the Indian market is okay because the viewers of the adaptations on Indian TV have plainly never seen the original programs. “For them, it’s something new. For example, I had seen the original 24 starring Jack Bauer. But when I saw it’s Indian version, I could not relate to it, despite the fact that Anil Kapoor is a fantastic actor and he really did well in the show. But people who had not seen the original one really loved it,” says Merchant.