Hum Log

It was the first soap-opera on Indian TV (Doordarshan), and captivated everybody (even if for the simple reason there was nothing else on TV!) The plot revolves around a lower-middle-class Indian family living in Delhi (I think): the drinking, singing father; the long-suffering, hard-working mother; their three daughters (ahh, the plight of a father with many daughters in India!) and one son; the grandparents; and the foreign-settled cousins. The eldest daughter is a feminist ("Bhadki" = angered), anti-dowry; the middle wants to have fun ("majli" = middle); and the youngest ("chutki" = small one) is in school, I think. The son wants to make money, and gets involved with a rich family (marrying into money). Just showed their everyday life.

The soap also had Ashok Kumar, the veteran actor of Indian movies, summarizing each episode at the end.

Sometimes fun, sometimes painful to watch, plenty of viewers.

The first huge soap opera of Indian television HUM LOG for Doordarshan in 1985 still manages to take us back to the simple life and its challenges of Indian middle class family way back in 1980s. The characters are straight out of big joint family and infact at times is on verge of cash crunch but still manages to stay afloat in the big city of New Delhi! The cast was perfect and every actor performed so naturally that we stop believing that they are performing. The cherry on cake is the philosophical end note legendary Ashok Kumar saab gave at end of episodes! The serial after its initial huge hit in 1980s got a rerun in early 1990s on Doordarshan and later episodes were lost! Now the episodes have been retrieved but they are sometimes uploaded on YouTube and at times removed from YouTube due to copyright. I managed to watch 3-4 epsiodes on YoutTube last week but now I again see they have been removed sadly. Also I think in the restored version Ashok kumars end commentary is not there in every episode though!