“How many Indian fans are watching Zindagi Gulzar Hai (ZGH) across the border?” is a question posted on the Facebook page of the serial, which ranks amongst the all-time hits on Pakistan television.

Rajat Chhabra was one of those Indians who watched it and wanted to share his feedback: “Fan from India! Really a mesmerising, fantastic show. Great story. Superb acting. Fabulous cast! What Indian TV shows can’t express in thousands of episodes, they did it in 26! Hats off! May you make more like these. Good work!” What Chhabra perhaps didn’t expect was the gushing response to his comment from fans on the other side of the LOC — within 24 hours over 1,650 would like his post and 121 would comment on it. And Chhabra was not the only one who replied to the poser — 5,850 others did too, besides the 91,540 who ‘liked’ the question.

If numbers tell a story, this is the narrative of an India-Pakistan connect, courtesy Zindagi. A general entertainment channel from Zee Entertainment, Zindagi is the first of its kind, exclusively broadcasting content from Pakistan. Going by initial reports, Zee has pulled off a coup of sorts.

The launch on June 23 was pan-India and, almost immediately, an overwhelming response from audiences followed. Social media sites began buzzing with feedback and many a viewer confessed returning to television after giving up on the dumbed-down entertainment churned out in India. The channel’s packaging, a mix of slick productions interspersed with promos touching on sentiments attached to the fractured political history of both countries, has proved to be its drawing power. That emotions have no sarhad , or frontiers, and that hearts can always meet, are reinforced by its tagline, Jodey Dilon Ko .

“Zindagi has had an unbelievable start. We were confident of tapping the markets of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and other metros as there is a cultural affinity, but it’s the positive response from the East and South that has been uplifting,” says Shailja Kejriwal, chief creative of Zee Entertainment and the driving force behind the venture. Zindagi has procured over 200 hours of content and is using this to its advantage by airing episodes through the week.

With assembly-line, melodramatic, poorly plotted saas-bahu soaps clogging the local entertainment bandwidth, realistic stories from across the border have been welcomed. “Tuning into Pakistani dramas is a sublime experience. Though storylines are similar, the direction is subtle, with every character leaving an impact. Plus, these are finite productions wrapping up in about 25 episodes, ensuring that if we do see a start, we will see an end too,” declares Kolkata-based Rekha Seth, a PR officer with a private firm.

From among Zindagi’s initial prime-time offerings of four back-to-back shows, ZGH and Aunn Zara topped the charts. Pakistani actors, too, have notched up an instant fan base, the most popular being the lissom Sanam Saeed (Kashaf in ZGH ), whose Facebook fan-pages are overflowing with comments from Indians, as are Fawad Khan’s (Zaroon in the same serial). Khan, incidentally, will soon be seen in his debut Bollywood film.

“With Zindagi we have created a new ‘premium mass category’, its target audience essentially being the upwardly mobile youth, the new-age woman and the globetrotter, all of whom are seeking alternative content,” says Kejriwal. The other key section of viewers are those affected by the Partition. Those who narrate tales of a shared past and the subsequent separation. “My parents would reminisce about their days and lives in Lahore. So I had a deep desire to visit the city. I didn’t miss any of the episodes of the just-concluded Aunn Zara . It gave me a daily peek into life in Lahore, and I relished the Punjabi dialect the Dadi (Nasreen Qureshi) spoke in, which is similar to ours,” says 65-year-old Chennai resident Amrita Malik.

Watching Pakistani serials is not exactly new for many viewers. It was during the mid-’80s that Pakistan Television (PTV) classics such as Ankahi , Tanhaiyaan and Dhoop Kinarey left an impression on drama buffs in India who watched these on pirated VHS borrowed from video parlours. The internet revolution of the ’90s saw the VHS give way to online viewing. Zindagi has modified it further by doing the once unthinkable and beaming content from the neighbour, across our border, directly into our homes.

( Brinda Suri is a Chandigarh-based journalist )

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