Growing up with Ektaa Kapoor K serials: No one died, everyone married the wrong person

It was a ritual — 15 years of lying beside my mother while she toggled between half a dozen Indian TV shows at once. She would change the channel, the moment someone started crying (which, you can guess was all the time), or if there was prolonged flashback---the typical monochrome ones, with sad Bollywood songs in the background. She had a talent though: She always knew what was happening in every show, and if I didn’t know, she would tell me.

And that’s how I spent years knowing everything that happening in all Ekta Kapoor serials. You name it. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Kasauti Zindagi Kay. Kahiin Toh Hoga, and even Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, towards the end, among so many others. If you've watched more than five of these shows in your lifetime, you already know the rules. You can spot the villain — she’s the one with sleeveless blouses, spiral curls, and bindis shaped like warning signs.

The showrunners help you out too: There’s a snarky background music to match, whereas the soulful, girl, the main lead, always has one plaintive tune fitting her woes in the background.

But then I figured out the basic ideas, and could get ahead of the plot, if needed.

I’m serious. Don’t mess with K-heroines. You never know when they’re wielding a gun (which they might produce from thin air). They killed to protect their loved ones, usually.  Nandini (Gauri Pradhan) from Kyunki did. She killed a man who threatened her family and that was an entire arc for a long time, because nobody knew who killed him, and her husband Karan woefully took the blame and everyone else was a suspect till Nandini was discovered and she was sent to jail.

Toodles. But, sometimes, they were wrong. Er. Like Prerna from Kasautti Zindagi Kay, who shot at her ex-lover, Anurag, because she assumed that he had killed her husband Rishabh Bajaj (Ronit Roy), even though she was standing on the opposite side of a hill, in a literal snowstorm.  

And then there was my favourite Kashish (Aamna Shariff) from Kahin Toh Hoga. She really didn’t kill anyone, but she pretended to put her life in danger and get…shot by thugs so that her lover Sujal, who was about to marry someone else, would realise her feelings for her again.

Yikes.

Yes. Lakshya (Pulkit Samrat) and KT’s (Mouni Roy) doomed wedding preparation in Kyunki  is an example. If the mehendi and sangeet drag past ten episodes, don’t hold your breath. Someone’s getting kidnapped, disinherited, or dramatically misunderstood.

Nothing quite compares to Kashish who was married, engaged more than thrice, -nd mostly for noble purposes, such as finding out who wants to kill her boss. So, she got engaged to her boss instead.

Win win!

Let’s focus on Kyunki first. Tulsi’s son, Gautam, was married once to Ganga, while he was in love with Teesha. Didn’t work. Divorced. He got married to Teesha. Teesha died, his half-brother Karan (Hiten Tejwani) is believed to be the reason behind her accident. So, what did he do next? He married Karan’s girlfriend, Damini.

But they’re happily married and had two children, so all worked out. What happened to Ganga, if anyone asked? She married Sahil, who cheated on her later with Tripti, and then returned to her 20 years later.

This is just one example, folks. Everyone had more complicated stories in Ekta Kapoor tales. Barring Baa, I don’t think anyone had a really stable marriage.

Don’t even get me started on Prerna’s marriages in Kasauti.

Let me scratch that. No character usually dies. In Kyunki, Mihir was supposed to have died, but the fan fury was so real that he was brought back. They can fall off a cliff, into gorges, into water, get eaten by crocodiles, but no one dies. They return, with fantastic ‘plastic surgery’, and possibly no memory.

Both men and women loved being noble and sacrificing in shows. It doesn’t matter if there was a solution staring them in the face, they had to just give up their happiness instantly, without a question…or er, apparently their lives too?

One example, if your head isn’t in a whirl already. In the early days of Kasautii, Prerna married ‘business tycoon’ Rishabh Bajaj, because he said that if she did, he would return Anurag’s property or some such. She did, Anurag got his property but lost Prerna.

As you can see, sacrifice is what drove the story forward. People went to jail, got married, jumped into rivers, without thinking much.

All these shows, belong to a very specific era of my life, preserved, precious and untouched, because it was the time I spent with my mother. It’s beyond constructive criticism, and I wish it stays in that era too. But considering today, everything is about bringing back nostalgia with such force, you don’t have much of an option.

And maybe that’s where it should stay. Nostalgia doesn’t need a reboot. Sometimes, it's enough just to remember.