Posted: 17 years ago

Story & Concept

RUHI had grown up wearing her best dresses to Sunday Mass at the church they attended in downtown London. She was the only daughter of JOHN and LINDA, an upper middle class white family residing in England. Yet in all her growing up years, she inexplicably was drawn to many facets of the PUNJABI INDIAN culture that was very abundantly on display at various corners of England. The music fascinated her, the aroma of spices, the fabric and the dresses, the colors everything seemed to have some kind of meaning to her though she could not explain why. LINDA seemed to avoid any conversation about INDIA and even JOHN who was an otherwise liberal man seemed to clam down on the mention of INDIA. Overtime, the Gurbani from local Gurudwara started to haunt yet attract her.

Then one day RUHI comes to know that, she was half-INDIAN and JOHN was actually her stepfather. LINDA had once been married to RANDHEER - a SIKH and RUHI was their daughter. RANDHEER's mother had refused to accept this relationship and had insulted LINDA when they had visited Punjab just before RUHI was born. After that their marriage disintegrated, they divorced, and RANDHEER requested LINDA to raise RUHI without telling her about her INDIAN origins for reasons best known to him.

Traumatised RUHI is drawn towards PUNJAB where she knows her biological father lives. She decides to go to PUNJAB to search for some explanation to the primeval pull that she feels, the inexplicable draw towards PUNJAB that has always lurked in her subconscious.

RUHI lands in PUNJAB to a huge extended family completely hostile to her. Moreover, a culture that is so alien to her that she does not know whether she will survive another day here. We look at PUNJAB and the culture of its landlords who staunchly hold on to their traditional methods of life. We explore PUNJABIYAT, the term, which defines PUNJABI culture in INDIA like never done before.

The pastoral way of life where the same brawn and the raw emotions that have managed to reap millions from what seems like unyielding plain raw earth, describes daily living. Every expression is like primeval scream of the farmer who heaves up a stone stuck in his field. Loud, animalistic, passionate, boisterous yet innately human and poignant where both pain and happiness is expressed in equal gusto and aggression. From a very rational state of mind that RUHI carries, PUNJAB and its people look to be simply surreal and childlike in their possessiveness and their hatreds. RUHI inherits not only the wrath of the family, she also inherits the decades old rivalries, she inherits their pains, their angst, their hopes and their dreams. Though the family outwardly does not accept her but in true PUNJABI tradition she is a guest whose honor is sacrosanct and they would kill for her, though never talk to her. She gets embroiled in their charades, in their intrigues and in their pains, yet she is a far cry from being accepted.

And the abundance of ceremonies, such an integral part of PUNJABIAT, in the beginning seem absurd and illogical to RUHI. However slowly she starts understanding the emotional foundations behind those ceremonies and she herself becomes an expert in them. It is a journey for RUHI from rationality and skepticism to accepting and understanding an emotional way of life. AND herein the serial differs from others. It does not talk about right and wrong, it just shows a way of life in all its dramatic hues. The choice to accept or reject is yours. And RUHI falls in love with not just PUNJAB but with a boy from the family with whom her own family has had traditional rivalry. And all hell threatens to break lose.

The novelty of this serial lies in the exploration of the way and life of pastoral and feudal PUNJAB. A PUNJAB on the verge of change and desperately tying to ward off the western influences, Punjabis desperately trying to hold on to their quaint cultural idioms, their ethos, their unshakeable belief in the hierarchy of social classes. Yet it is a PUNJAB, which is vibrant, celebratory, energetic full of passion and aggression. The music and the songs, the celebration of life and even death, the billowing crop swaying to the magic folk songs, the same ripe fields that see the first sexual escapades to the murders of century old enemies, for long forgotten reasons. The people who hate passionately, who love passionately, who live passionately, who will passionately defend what they believe is right and at the same time in a fit of passion will throw all the above mentioned passions out of the window and sacrifice themselves with the same passion. From her staid, BRITISH way of life RUHI is thrown into a dramatic melting pot of high strung emotions and loud gregarious emotionality and the with RUHI even the AUDIENCE is plunged into this roller coaster ride. The people are rich, the people are brawny and good looking, the women are sexy, the dresses are ornate and great, the locales are beautiful yet the serial is different because we explore the dramatic conflicts rooted in a certain culture that has not been seen on television on the recent past.

Courtesy: setindia.com

Posted: 17 years ago
thanx 4 sharing!!!

cant w8 2 watch it!!!!
😊
Posted: 17 years ago
thanks for sharing the story..it sounds interesting. looking forward to watching it.
Posted: 17 years ago
Thanks for the overview..Seems like a very different concept to me..A refreshing change from the other romance and saans-bahu related serials..Sony is coming up with two good shows and i cant wait for them to start..
Posted: 17 years ago
thanks for sharing! 😊

sounds interesting!
Posted: 17 years ago

thanks! it sounds interesting... 😃
Posted: 17 years ago

Originally posted by aerian


Thanks for the overview..Seems like a very different concept to me..A refreshing change from the other romance and saas-bahu related serials..Sony is coming up with two good shows and i cant wait for them to start..
..

yea i was tired of watching all those shows...finally something interesting..

thanks a lot for sharing priya

Posted: 17 years ago
thanks for the story...its really good that we will also get to know the real treditions of this state Punjab
thanks a lot again

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