Bangalore "Foams" After Rain

Its the last day of march, and as promised the April-showers that bring much relief to heat stricken bangaloreans are here, a day earlier...

And after the rain last night, rain water has collected up all over the city (Gosh its the first rain, and the drains are already choked???? what will happen when the monsoon arrives...? shudder... double shudder). With all the rain forming little lakes all along the road (and some even in the middle of the road.. hehehehe) a peculiar foam has suddenly appeared  over all the rain water which has collected up on the road, all over the city. Its bizzare... the entire city (well most of it, that I saw when I traveled across city to get to work) has this soap-sud layer on the streets. These were bubbly, but not the kind there are caused cos of wheels driving though water (they disappear quickly). These bubbles are persistent (cos the rain stopped long back, more than 3 hours earlier), and these bubbles are not very "airy" either. they are small and tiny, and look like the someones tried real hard to foam up hard water. (i don't have any pics to show ...)

Initially, I was a bit wonder struck. It kinda looked novel and the streets looked kinda pretty (all street road in dull white, unseen)  but as the kms increased, it got uglier, and even puzzling to the point of annoying and irritation. I don't know what this foamy thing in Bangalore is, but its getting on my nerves (especially when there is talk of compulsory rain water harvesting in all homes (which is a good thing)).

From some googling and some general sense I gather this :

Foams are often seen on pools and lakes. Most of the times, this happens because of existence of surface active agents (surfactants) in water (natural and synthetic) which reduce the surface tension of water. Foam, created in air, enters water through turbulences in streams or waves. Foaming is also observed on trees when it rains. I read that its because of the stem flow collects impurities over the barks and other surfaces and mixes with atmospheric nitrogen, sulfur or potassium. These, act as condensation nuclei, reduce the surface tension of water and cause a foamy production on the bark or foot of trees. I also know that foams are a common on rainwater puddles, especially when there is a detergent spill or oil-coolant spill. Foaming due to detergents is, after all, not problem unheard of.

What surprises me bout this is

1. It suddenly shows up : Its never happened before. I don't think i have seen such large scale foaming event before. Most foams are seen near edges of lakes and water bodies, or near the source of the pollutant.

2. Its so widespread: Initially i thought it was a truck spill or something and didn't think much. after traveling for more than 3 kms away from the current rain water streams, to parallel streams, the foam persisted. it was everywhere. I mean, it couldn't have been a spillage, the foam was too wide spread for it.

3. A friend of mine at office suggested its cause of natural detergents in some seeds like रीठा (Reetha, soap nut tree). But soap nut trees are not very widespread in Bangalore. and unless there was a forest of soap nuts,  I don't think a soap-sud type layer of this size could be worked up.

I just saw this article posted nearly 3 years back. it talks bout the same problem in Michigan, US. although no solution has been posted. there are a lot of similarities. common line of though (as i read this article, i thought to myself... " Hey!! i thought the same thing!!" ... not very relevant,  but sometime what instinct guides us to is perhaps more important ). It during the spring time. it happened after the first rainfall event(s).not due to any spillage. it was wide spread. Maybe it was something in the air. Some kind of pollution sign. maybe it had something to do with the seasonal pollen (although am pretty sure flora and fauna of Bangalore and Detroit are quite different). (also, I don't think it has anything to do with volcanic ash... :) )

Intriguing. Any clues? if anyone knows.. tell me!

(this post does not have any rambling... phew!) 

"Why k dramas??"

To my and friends; who always ask me... "how did u end up watching Korean dramas???" ... "Why k dramas??"

(I swear, I think when my parents found out about my k drama addiction, they thought I was seeing a Korean... hehehehehehe :D )

EDIT: After reading this one of my friends has suggested that in "पिछला जनम" i was a korean :P Which would explain the addiction to k dramas :D 
(Uh ... k dramas = Korean dramas... err... if that wasn't clear earlier)



Once upon a time, when we were younger and jobless in our final year of engineering at NITK, I discovered something called DC++ and the abundant amount of time pass that the LAN had to offer. I had just gotten a new laptop and so I was all ready to be entertained, more so cos, in final year semesters, you have very few classes and are expected to concentrate on getting good jobs and doing a good worthwhile projects. Of course most of us didn't bother to do that and took the liberty and free time to update ourselves on the latest (and older) serials/series and movies.


Now one year is a long time and almost continuous watching of movies and serials (with the obvious 'break-time' to attend some classes to maintain some amount of attendance), and I had exhausted the list of all watchable (and some unbearable unwatchable) English and Hindi movies and series. I had seen EVERY possible romcom, comedy,historical, action, mystery, thriller movie and I was so bored that I even started watching series. Some were quite good and kept me hooked, while most others didn't do much for me...(I just couldn't get past 3 rd season of grays anatomy and 2nd season of heroes and no prison break .. tough luck.. although i am told the 1st season is really good... perhaps.. some other time.)


So, it was the last few months in college. I was just doing a random search on LAN and found this movies called "innocent steps". Just to be sure, I googled it, (..the number of times i have found misleading names on LAN!!!), thought it safe enough, watched it... and loved it (and RAN to my friends room and told them to watch it :D ) ... after a while we all wanted some more.. so we saw the few other k movies on LAN..( I skipped the horror / gore movie though) and I was HOOKED!! I am told ... (Rambling 1)....


So... After coming back from college I was so unplugged from regular TV entertainment, I started watching k movies at home. And after almost an year of that.. ( I have a lot to say bout k movies too.. but thats for another post), I exhausted the list of good watchable romcom light comedy funny movies too. In all my searches I had read some stuff about dramas too... but I wasn't sure.. cos downloading an entire series is much different than downloading a short, one and a half hour movie... It takes time to download and to finish a series, which is why I stopped watching series in first place. Anyway... some research on and I thought I'd give it a try.. After considerable amount of reading and thinking, I finally decided (at 1 in the morning) to start watching "on-air". I liked the premise of the story and it was rated quite high on mysoju.com at that time.. and shallow that I am.. I really liked how the poster (and the hero :D ) looked...

Hehe.. I remember it took me 3 to 4 times of watching the first episode to
a) read the subs
b) correlate the subs to who is saying what
c) remember who is who
d) figure out what was happening

hehehe... Later ...(Rambling 2)....


So far I have watched about 12-15 dramas and my views/reviews on/f them are for (yet another) post. This post is just a general rambling on k dramas and why I watched them.
So now you have the history and the set-up of how I first got into k drama land (I think set-up and history are very important to understand why some one likes something or why some thin came in to existence. It offers a validation and some good background info if you really want to understand something).


So why I recommended k dramas : ( I don't mean to degrade / bash Indian TV industry in the next few paras... but as i said... u have to know that i was really bugged with them at home.. which is why I started watching k dramas... so my reasons for k drama addiction will often site the bad sides of Indian TV entertainment)



1) My FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT reason! they are short and sweet.

Most dramas have a limited episodes. mostly 16- or 20- eps long. (although there are serials that run for more than 100 eps too, which tend to be family dramas and very plotty and melodramatic (called makjang .. out saas-bahu equivalents). you can finish them easily and ditch them if ti gets too boring without feeling guilty of wasting so much internet time downloading ( I usually never watch a drama seriously unless its done downloading. Oh...(Rambling 3)....



2) Different themes

Short lengths ensure that the story gets over early and so you have a larger number of dramas to be produced every year... which gives the opportunity to keep things new and introduce new themes every time. while many dramas use themes just as plot devices and are often reduced to backgrounds that are rarely made use off in the actual story, You'll find many dramas that do decent amount of research into a topic and use it well to form a story. While not all dramas have this advantage, most of the ones I've seen, do. Which is why i really liked "on air" it was a show about making serials and that was what they stuck to. They definitely had a lot of melodrama, but all was in line with the story and its background. Which doesn't happen in Indian TV serials (although the trend is changing, but not so much)


Counter argument 1: If we keep having too many dramas you'll run out of stories.
Counter argument 2: We have different story lines in the same serial. when we finish with one story line we start with a new one. So you don't waste time with introducing new characters and new stories every time. Your main protagonists are already popular and so you save time on setting up back ground.
....(Rambling 4)....


counter counter argument 1: that wont happen if your story is well written and well researched.. there are too many things in the world.. you'll never run out of stories (unless u stick to popular stories and cliches)...(lame counter argument... i know.. but its true!)
counter counter argument 2: While there is advantage in that, your characters become multi talented and start having multi personalities



3) Well produced, well acted, "movie - like" feel

Watch them and you'll know what am talking about. The acting and execution made me think am watching a movie. (Much like how u feel wen u now watch the YRF produced serials on SONY TV these days: i refer to powder rishta.com, mahi way etc etc etc)
hehe normally wen u watch TV there is always this TV serial like feel .. cos of the sets or costumes or make up or actors or wtvr.



4) Asian culture

There is no doubt that in all Asian countries there runs a common thread of similar traditions, social and cultural beliefs. So its very easy to connect to these serials on a cultural level.
Although understanding what is happening in a English serial/ movie is not really a problem (esp for urban kids who have grown up watching HBO/star movies/star world ), we know that our lives are way different that theirs and the stuff that happens in TV lives don't happen in ours. while we all know what a prom is.. we have never been to one. this way English serials often are a dreamland we escape to. (what watching English serials have done to mentality of youth in India is YET another post... too long to ramble about).


Also, am a big fan of learning different things bout different cultures, which is why I like(d) some serials on TV that are setup in a non urban environment ,and show the different festivals and cultures of different regions in India. (I stopped watching these shows for other reasons explained in reason 2 of this list); which is why I like watching k dramas. while ...(Rambling 5)....



5) OST

Great songs and great background score.(I got this from an Discovery documentary called "hip korea"). Its a long analysis. But in short: the music industry has suffered greatly, in connected countries like Korea, Singapore etc) cos of internet downloading of songs and file sharing. This forces artists to find new ways to earn their keep and to change their scene of work. Which is why its common to find big names contribute to OST of drama. In India we haven't even heard of an OST for dramas (except for their title songs, which are many times sung by famous artists)



6) Great Looking clothes / sets / scenes / actors :D

time for some netrasukh. For VARIOUS reasons (importance of looking good and young in Korea, scary netizens and HUGE fan clubs) actors/actresses in k dramas always tend to look and dress up well. Most sageuks (historical dramas) will make u feel like u should live in Korea... (by which I mean the place so well captured on camera, and not that India lacks beautiful spots or isn't beautiful.)



7) The Language

Watching k dramas has made me appreciate how difficult it is translate and make subs! we all know its not as simple as just translation. u have ti maintain the tone, language, kind of language spoken by characters, make sure that the jokes make sense in English)... hats off to all fan subbers!! Also, the Korean language doesn't sound that alien to an Indian viewer (esp if coming from south India. Apparently, Korean and Tamil grammar and language are very similar and yes, it is very noticeable). Oh ya... their script is fun to read. its a phonetic language (unlike Chinese) and is easy to learn. :D


8)Fangirling!!!!

This is something that I did when I was a teenager in high school. For some reason.. I never swooned and drooled on celebrity crushes.. so the whole fan girl thing was alien to me... UNTIL I saw k drama and saw how fanatic people can get... let me tell u... if u haven't tried fan-girling openly... do it once.. you'll feel soooooooooooo good :)


9)Discussions and analysis
For the first time I've seriously tried to understand characters in TV shows. While most of do this to fictional characters from books (and sometimes in movies) i never took characters in TV serials seriously before. Perhaps ...(Rambling 6) ....
Discovery of the site dramabeans.com.. this is great discovery. There are many blogs about k drama, k movies,k pop etc, that analyze and "deconstruct", this one is top class. Visit the blog and you'll see why i like it so much.

Check out dramabeans... Click here




10)They are really addicting! 

So if u watch one you'll end up wanting to watch one more and then more and more :D.. ahhhh sigh......

(NOTE: i have tried my best to sound rational in my reasons. if i were to be my shallow - self and allow myself to ramble and run with it the above list would also include a loooooooooot of fangirling and drooling and swooning :D ... )




Let me just end this with a list of k dramas I really like and would recommend (I may not include many popular dramas that are usually included in list. this could be cos
a) i haven't seen them
b) i didn't like them
c) liked them but don't really recommend people watching it first time
Of course, there are dramas that I REALLY liked, but many may not and some that i haven't finished but i REALLY like.It personal taste. My views on these dramas is another post. Oh! and don't go by names. They sound a but weird in English, which is why I was VERY reluctant to watch coffee prince :D.. am so glad I did. it cemented by k drama addiction)


1. First Shop of Coffee Prince

(source :http://sushidei.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/coffeeprince.jpg )

2. The World that they Live in/ Worlds Within

(source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDrb4zckLMMSdtOLcu-4cjJfdDZir6MqdDSvXRD-IIpQ5-hvyj0MNjcb596ni1uIbF3D2TLpoo47sJQnca2pwIpPHFlXqB8Fbr6W9C1OcIiyx6fTJOtLwmT-bKAAPFK2clJbsOJyuqPtI/s400/worlds+within+poster.jpg)

3. My name is Kim Sam Soon/My lovely Sam Soon

(source : http://image.yesasia.com/assets/GalleryImage/r_g0000001099_0_01.jpg)

4. The Painter of the Wind

(source : http://mrkpop.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/painterwind.jpg)

5. You're Beautiful

(source: http://www.koreandrama.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/youarebeautiful2.jpg)

6. Bad Family

(source:http://sites.google.com/site/cmeiyee/badfamilypic.jpg)

7. Goong/Princess Hours

(source: http://www.freewebs.com/dramadreams/korean%20drama%20pics/goong.jpg)

8. Chuno/Slave Hunters (currently airing)

(source: http://trends.korea.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/chuno1.jpg)

Oh here's a japanese drama I just finished watching and I REALLY loved (have seen only 2 of those) : Nodame Cantabile
( I started reading manga/manhwa cos of jdorama and k dramas :D)

(source:http://saraineilan.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/nodame-cantabile-banner.jpg)

See ya!

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Rambling Session # 2

Rambling 1:
I am told that Korean movies are as popular as mainstream movies in the northeast regions of India due to a 'bandh' on satellite TV and movies in some states in the region.. which lead to smuggling of Filipino, Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean movies and dramas. So... am guessing whoever put it on on LAN was from NE party??? can't be too sure though....
Anyhoo.... whoever put it on LAN.. a biiiiiiiig thank you from my side... cos if it weren't for these Korean movies I wouldn't have survived my first year at home from college....back to top




Rambling 2 : 
It was on later, after i finished seeing the drama, and i went and researched some more bout it that i realized that MANY people (including regular watchers) had trouble digesting the first ep of this drama... although i dismissed it as a newbie's difficulty in understanding and getting used to the pace. ANYWAY... i really really liked it and told ALL my friends about it... hehehe... although they weren't on the k-movie/k-drama bandwagon and so didn't really take much interest. Me, on the other hand, addicted to Korean movies for an year and a half then, was in serious vacuum when i finished watching on-air and found it totally enjoyable. it that got me to watch my next drama... "COFFEE PRINCE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My number ONE drama and i recommend it anyone who id interested in some light hearted but not shallow entertainment....back to top


Rambling 3:
oh... that pain of waiting for the next episode... i did that for a drama recently. a watched a drama while it was being aired on TV. the first 10 eps i watched continuously since i started late. but ep 11 to 16 was such torture to wait for. It was like being on drugs. (not that I've been on them. but wtvr.) The show aired on wed 0 thu time slot. so i would download it / watch it on you tube in the wee hours of thu and fri... and oh! the entire weekend i would sulk in anticipation. on Mondays it was the worst. Towards the last week even browsing bout the drama, reading recaps, listening to songs from the OST and searching for pics would bring no relief!!
I promised myself never ever to do that.. but! i have broken that rule and now am watching chuno as it is being aired... sigh.. am in a pitiable state. :( ...back to top



Rambling 4::
What i mean is.. in most dramas ( i talk bout Indian TV serials, but not restricting to them, even many k dramas suffer from this too) you'll have a heroine who is ... a... say...a fashion designer. In the first few eps you'll see her with a sketch pad and some fabric... but thats it.. after a week.. after meeting the hero and all that everything bout work is forgotten! She hardly goes to office, or design stuff, or have showings etc etc etc. And after she is married there is no mention of her working also... sigh... and once that happens .. .we enter our "favorite territory" plotting and saas-bahu. we even forget what we started with. like first we have someone trying to poison the heroine and then once that whole story is over we bring in a new story of how the hero was already married once and his wife is now a ghost in the house ( i am not making this up people.There is the story of famous novel Rebbecca which was SUDDENLY incorporated in a serial called saat phere.. which originally dealt with how it is difficult for a dark skinned girl to get married ... no relation to original story). This is supposed to happen in India cos the producers take much of the decision making role in the story writing instead of the actual scriptwriters (i got this from a TOI Sunday edition article). ...back to top



Rambling 5:
WHILE i know these are all serials and hardly represent the actual way people in Korea may live, it gives an insight into their culture and their social practices. It also gives an offers an opportunity to compare how 2 different countries (India and Korea) which gained independence in near about the same time (gone through different histories) and modern yet traditional.. in complementary manners. (This again is a topic for a long and much more serious discussion.. one that i would like to think more and then write. but lets take a small example,.. not that what i am writing now is very well though of... but wtvr...) Small example: and not really a good one.. a very simplistic one. In India.. its very common to see everyday people wear so called ethnic clothes on a daily basis. MOST Indian women wear saris or salwar kameez (whether they work or not). Its not uncommon to see men wearing kurta too. This (i think, from what i gather not JUST from serials but other blogs too) is not common in Korea. I don't think people wear hanbok everyday and go to work. Its only worn on festivals and traditional occasions. But then, there are so many other traditional aspects of living that are still retained in Korea but their counterpart in India is missing. (for some reason i am unable to come up with an example to support this... cos I've hardly been to Korea or even spoken to a korean). But ok.. I have one (weak??) example; the way one address each other in Korea is very strict and has a lot of importance in society. There are strict terms to be used and rules to be followed and who you address, when where and how is taken all very seriously. While an India society did have this (or similar situation) few decades ago, this practice is almost disappeared. Many of us, esp once we are grown up enough call our older sibling by names; in many workplaces, (esp in s/w companies) bosses are often referred to and called by names (first names, which is something I personally find awkward, cos the man/woman could be as old as ur parent!!) ... its just interesting to observe how two countries can boast of the same thing (modern yet traditional) by doing them so differently (and in a way that is almost complementary to each other)....back to top


Read this interesting article "Understanding Korean Dramas"




Rambling 6:
Perhaps they are not presented in a way to make you think seriously, or perhaps none of them are inspiring enough to make us think, "why is this person doing this" (note : I said person, and not character, by which i mean that I take these characters from k dramas much more seriously.) perhaps Indian fictional characters on TV do not seem real enough (for various reasons : events in life, nature, even their dressing) for us to even think of them as people who could exist, although many of them are inspired by real life (I heard that कहानी घर घर की was inspired by a real family of 4 (?) brothers... but look what happened in the serial. At this point is will be good to point out that perhaps i should compare like with like and not compare saas bahu serials with 'trendy k dramas' but compare them to their equivalent makjang serials. true enough.. although i haven't really seen many of those to make a comparison. and we don't HAVE short dramas to compare 'trendy k dramas' with).
of course, there are exceptions to this, and sometimes, when one of the serials enter better plot lines, its interesting to note character developments.


A SLIGHTLY off topic complaint (nothing to do with comparison with k dramas) : most our serials have heroines ho are portrayed as ideal naari and stuff. while many female protagonists start off as strong individuals, after a few months of airing, these characters turn into weepy weak punching bags for life to remove its wrath on....back to top


End of Rambling session #2

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Hello World !

Pehla Post : Kya? Kab? Kyon? Kahan? Kaise? Kisne?

(श्री गणेश) : Right. Here We Go.

(Where): blogger.com

(Why) : So I have no clue why I am doing this; (well i do... but that seems to be the only way I could start writing :P )except that I need a place to ramble bout things, and am too lazy to write (and maintain) a diary (he he .. not that writing a blog is going to be easy.. or maintain), and that my friends are kinda tired of me writing them really huge long (and repetitive) mails and letters.

(When) : Officially, am supposed to be on "blogger" since... September.. i think (??) ... oh,, and i had a blog that i didn't know existed .. he he

(How) : All I know is recently I tried to sign up on blogger and realized I already have account (which, I remembered later, I had signed up to 'follow' my other friends.. (yeah i know "duh" ) .. )
and had a blog too (with a ridiculous name... not that this one's remotely good.... no really.. i don't get it when it comes to blog names.... * ...(Rambling 1 ...)) AND a blog (which I remembered much later) that I had created when I was experimenting with names. It had a name that was too lame even for me to accept, and so now I have settled for the less lamer 'kpm1111'...

(What) : I really don't know what (and how )I will be 'rambling' here about... but you can expect this blog to cover the following topics :
1. Funny stuff and anecdotes from home and office
2. My favourite entertainment - music, movies, TV (I don't really go to theaters and watch movies so am not that up to date. Same in case of music and TV. ill just rite stuff about things i like, or stuff i would like to recommend. CAUTION: this may also include Korean dramas and movies as am a big fan. Most people around me don't get it and tease me for it (Rambling 2...) .
3. Clever stuff that I find when am reading, my favorite books, Art and stuffs
4. Issues that (I think) are worth commenting on , Life in general
5. Well... anything else I feel like rambling on (he he)

(Who) : My profiles kinda incomplete (non existent actually) at this time, but I think i will update it soon enough.
But anyone reading this probably knows me.... so....



NOTE: '*' this is me rambling and going off tangent in the middle of a conversation. If you know me, you probably know I do this a lot. For the purpose of this blog and the sanity of the reader, I shall ramble separately, under different headings :D .
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Rambling Session #1

Rambling 1 :

Blog names:

I don't get it when it comes to blog names...
some people (no, lots of people) I know have such beautiful and poetic blog names (in the likes of whispers of the wind, rants on the roads, unheard voices, screaming silences, flowers of my mind, blooming springs, Of tangents and hyperboles, mango mood :P blah blah..(Note: many of these may not be blogs and may not know people who write them. I am just quoting the kinds of names blogs TEND to have.) no.. Now, I too want a really pretty/ clever name for my blog and I . Perhaps am not just imaginative enough but EVERY, EVERY name that I tried was taken. Even clever stuff like k-rants, a-musing and all kinds of names with all kinds of hyphens and apostrophes were taken. Man! am so unoriginal....
You have to pity me cos' my own name, and all (sensible) combinations formed by adding all letters and symbols before and after it were ALSO taken. So in frustration, I entered my usual ( and lazy) login name and viola its available and in that joy of seen green text that approves the name of my blog, i just clicked it... and here I am. With the most unusual and boring and lazy and pedestrian name like kpm1111.

(Hehehe... even the title of my blog seems so lame. God would have to make me an incarnation of दुर्गा माँ and provide me with 'n' number of hands to count the number of blogs that have titles with the words "rant" and "ramble" in them.)

ANYWAY.... (sigh) "whats in a name"... Lets get on with it.. जो काम करने आए हो, वह तो करो... नाम की क्या पड़ी हैं ....
I am here to ramble and thats exactly what I am gonna do. Ramble.
(On the lines of "Don't judge a book by its cover" am gonna say "don't judge a blog by its URL".... (how much do you want to bet that someone somewhere was cleverer and faster than me and has already quoted this)...... sigh...)

so lets get back to where I was....

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Rambling 2:
Korean Dramas :

but then, i find them very different from what I've been watching on TV (with the exception of some good and different stuff like "बालिका वधु" (which i used to watch until recently, it kinda got repetitive. But kudos to that show, it was the first of it kind - what i call social drama (too many shows of similar genre were launched soon after बालिका वधु, न आना इस देस लड़ो and अगले जनम मोहे बिटिया ही कीजो... but the writers I think couldn't refrain from entering into the family drama genre after a few months of running...), and the recently launched YRF-SONY TV section... (Rambling 2.5...) (FINALLY big production companies are taking an interest in TV ॥ esp after Bollywood so many 'not so good' years in the recent times , and after big Bollywood stars became more 'accessible' to the TV-watching-junta via reality show and quiz show..... )
P.s. There was an article in last week's magazine section of the Sunday newspaper , times I guess, saying similar things. Man... do I ever write anything first?

I think I'll talk about my Korea obsession in a separate blog. Am afraid it may get lost in my ramblings. It deserves an independent post.. but i just had to mention it now :D
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Rambling 2.5
(rambling within a rambling..???)

The YRF- Sony (Yash Raj Films -Sony) thing kinda reminds of the 9 gold channel (a one hour (??) slot in DD Metro years back that brought higher-quality-production dramas on Doordarshan. In the past 2 years or so... Some shows on NDTV- Imagine and Colors, and Sony too seemed ज़रा हटके). I watched a few of these YRF shows on last Sunday (Rishta.com (welcome "trendy dramas" and POWDER (kinda reminds me of "Sea-Hawks", not because it deals with substance smuggling, but the feel in general.. the action-thriller genre, is not one of my favorites, but I am liking this. Also reminds me of the old "उड़ान" on DD)) and I am liking it. It brings a fresh wave of production and direction style in Indian TV.
1. I don't know technical terms. But the direction and screenplay seem more real life like and because they are from a better production house, the acting and cinematography seem more of the 'movie' standard (not that many movies are good, I just mean they seem to have a better quality).
2. I don't know how long these dramas will run, but I kinda miss the old DD format of fixed number of episodes in a drama (11 or 12 or 16 or whatever). These dramas were usually completely shot prior to airing, which is why i think they seemed more complete and contained. But i don't think thats will be the case here.
I hope these new dramas have a fixed number of episodes so that their possible successes may not tempt producers to order extensions to their length and thus mar the story and the quality.
3. They get right to the point. Ever so often, on many serials, we have to wait for a week (No.. make that 2) to get to the actual storyline of the drama. Much time is wasted on the character introductions and their 'pitiful lives'... and then after the initial storyline.. all serials enter into the "plotting" and "make-heroines-life-miserable" stage. Sigh!
4. I really don't have very high hopes as the more you expect, the more disappointed you are.Besides, its just 2 weeks into the show...
I do wish they would have 2 hours airing time; one hours seems to less to keep me hooked (anything more than that would be too much...).

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End of Rambling Session #1

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Waah. I never realized this would run so long. So... I guess I do have quite a bit too say which justifies a blog... (???).., more, perhaps in posts later to come..

Until then..

ALSO: Am not very patient with proper punctuation. Though I shall try to be correct whenever I remember to. :D...