Tara is helpless when her father repeatedly gets violent and abusive with her mother. Every time he hits her, she runs out and rings the doorbell to save her mother from her abusive father.
Tara is a character in a new adolescent TV drama series on DD’s National network. BBC Media Action(BBC’s international NGO and development communication arm) in partnership with UNICEF has developed the 78-episode TV drama series titled AdhaFULL (Half-full) a whodunit with three teenagers that comes together in a make believe town called Badlipur to solve one case per week. The series begins this Friday.
The series tackles many ‘coming of age issues’ like under-age marriage, sex-selective abortion, female foeticide, dowry, fair skin and beauty myths, stereotyping of women and girls, sexual health, financial dependence, higher education for girls, school drop-outs, hygiene and sanitation, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health and gender-based violence.
Engage and entertain
The series will be supported by a radio show where RJ Nikki who plays the role of the school teacher in the series will host a chat show that will feature celebrities from the world of entertainment, music, real stories along with music, jokes, drama, interesting and helpful information.
The aim, producers say, is to engage and entertain adolescents, aged 10-19, and their parents to help them understand and provide them with tips on handling adolescent problems and aspirations. “India is home to 243 million adolescents. About one-fifths of the world's population in the age group of 10-19 lives in India,” said Louis-Georges Arsenault, UNICEF’s representative in India.
“It is imperative that they break their leash and spring forth to succeed. We need to support them on their rights, walk with them and partner them in their aspirations and for them to be the next generation of leaders and catalysts of change.”
According to Radharani Mitra, National Creative Director and Executive Producer, BBC Media Action, young lives and aspirations are about the 3Cs – curiosity, challenge and creativity.
“They are willing to re-evaluate, to take chances but often feel limited. Through the TV series and its characters, we want to engage our young viewers and their parents in a journey of change, so that they feel they can negotiate and work with the 3Cs,” said Mitra.
Devika Bahl, consulting producer for BBC Media Action, feels that AdhaFULL will prove that challenging themes, engaging stories and endearing characters are not mutually exclusive and that it has a soul and a heart beating for the young adults – it’s “witty, vibrant, palpable and very real.”
'Feel nervous'
For Harsh Mayar, an award-winning child actor, his modest upbringing as a son of a small time tent dealer in Delhi, helped him to get into the skin of his screen character who is a street-savvy survivor and orphan.
“I feel nervous when I go to a five-star hotel as I am not used to that kind of place, attention or glamour. Even my English is not good. I could well imagine what an orphan would feel given my life's experience,” he said.
“There are intensely emotional scenes in the series and doing them really drained me as the character is very demanding,” he added.
And 12-year-old Neelanshi Singh, who plays Tara, is a school-going student who found it awkward at first to deal with domestic violence on the screen.
The silence and prejudices surrounding the issue of menstruation was also not easy for Ahsaas Channa who plays Kitty, the elder of the trio in the series. But standing up to pressures of child marriage from her on-screen family and performing all the stunts on the sets was somehow liberating.
Producer Sudhir Sharma feels it is not just another run-of-the-mill show whose success is determined solely by the popularity charts. Although the goal is to be top of the charts, the intent and purpose behind this show has already made it a special one.
“Superb concept, high on entertainment, full of meaningful content, what else you can ask for from a show?”
