||JANTKI Frustrations Thread|| - Page 2

Am seeing this thread now  Thanks for opening this though 😊 much needed 

Dear Friends 

This is a longish post - but then I am frustrated 😡 and confused... 😕

I have been meaning to do this for many days – a kind of detox or better still my version of Junoon rehab. I think it is important for the reader to know one thing about me – I don't watch daily soaps… in any language. My usual tendency is to look down on them. No… I am not a snob. I enjoy my Golmaal and Housefull kind of humour. There is a front bencher hidden in my middle class intellectual vision of my own self. But I cannot abide daily soaps – with their regressive take on the woman's role in the house and society, their seriously demented take on relationships and the crazy portrayal of power being vested in one hand (usually an authoritarian saas or maa or tau) and the guaranteed presence of at least one evil minded relative who could easily give the devil a run for his money as far as hatching heinous plots go.

So what I am trying to say is that I don't watch soaps – too predictable, too boring, too damn unintelligent. Then two things happened. I quit my day job with a magazine to pursue my passion of writing full time and while channel surfing I happened to come across a serial based in a North Indian village featuring a beautiful, passionate, intelligent and gutsy woman and a handsome, rough-n-tough, passionate and clever man. And I fell in love. With the story, with the characters (and the brilliant actors portraying them), with the location, situations, atmosphere and the overall badass ballsyness (no such word exists I know… but it should) of a serial and the creative forces behind it, that were willing to break the norms set in stone by the Indian television channels, production houses and Ekta Kapoor (as a side note I think it is important to state here that I worship her choices as a film producer – I just don't like the damn serials). I had missed the first two months of this fabulously moving, funny and dramatic series – but yeah for YouTube – I caught up with every single episode out there and fan-girled over every sigh, argument, touch, push, glare and eye-lock between Prithvi and Meera. Mills-n-Boons love stories and chic-lit romance were damp ash compared to this serial and its protagonists.

Goddamn! Junoon – Aisi Nafrat Toh Kaisa Ishq was hot! We had a lead pair that made us want to fall in love again. Quite a few women I know were considering moving to the Indian hinterlands and searching for their soul mate in tall, dark, handsome men wearing a dhoti, kurta and cool shades and sporting that moustache and stubble. I could understand where they were coming from. We all like our bad boys with hearts of gold and we luuurve our gorgeous boys with hearts of gold who pretend to be bad. And I am sure men all over the land had a zillion reasons for praying to 'Bhagwan-ji' that a gorgeous gal would point a gun at them.

Oh and did I mention the supporting characters? A villain who once did a jig at a puja that made me want to make Sholay 3 and cast him as Gabbar, a mean, mean, mean aunt who scared me cause she was so real, a pandit-ji that I really liked and trusted, a father who tried to hide his love for his daughter, a datta who loved his man-Friday like a son and a second wife who I would have happily called ma. People you got to remember – I don't watch serials cause I hate the idiocy they propagate. So when I say that this one was good – it means … IT. WAS. GOOD.

So the production house and the channel are sitting on a gold mine. What do they do then? They proceed to systematically destroy the story.

• They move it out of the village – I mean why be original? Almost every other bloody run-of-the-mill story is set in the city. Let us also do that.
• They bring in a whole set of new supporting characters – Just like that! We lose the villain, the mean aunt, the nice pandit-ji, the sweet second mother. Thank God the hero, heroine and the heroine's parents continue to be featured! They bring in a whole set of new characters to aid the move to the city. Fine… it is still not too bad. Not ideal but palatable.
• Then they turn the loyal, nice friend into a mean, conniving, cunning smart ass who wants to keep the hero and heroine apart. He comes up with intricate plans that depend on split second timing, everything working out exactly the way he envisages, everyone behaving exactly the way her predicts and hey gee whiz – that is exactly what happens! For nearly two months this new villain plays with our collective patience and makes a complete fool of everybody.
• They also turn our hitherto intelligent and clever lead pair into gullible idiots who take the new villain at this word, not once questioning him or the situation. Not once communicating with each other. But we were still hanging in there. Why? Guys do yourselves a great favour and service and watch the initial few months' episodes to know the answer to that why. The chemistry between the leads and the relationship between the two that evolves from distrust and hate to a very reluctant love and finally, a complete embracing of what is truly the relationship of their lives – it was perfect. *Fan-girl sigh*
• The creative geniuses also turned the two passionate individuals, who could not be in the same room without the temperatures increasing in every living room where the serial was playing, into damp squibs. And no, they did not have to be touchy feely to be passionate. The passion was in the dialogues, the fights, the looks, the situations and the hundred and one things that were left unsaid (a mark of really good writing). What do they do this great passion / junoon? They turn the two hot, passionate, flawed, strong, bindaas characters into kind, wise soul mates whose love, passion and desire for each other is satisfied by a kind loving almost maternal / paternal glance or touch.
• And finally, the other day I had the TV to myself for the whole day – hubby busy with the audit season (yeah no IPL), daughter away at a friend's place, no looming deadlines – so I sat and watched TV. Channel surfed to be more exact. And this is what I learned! In almost every serial across the three channels I took a gander at, some character or the other was in jail or was in danger of going to prison; the lead pair were separated; the lead were involved in enacting a huge plan or hoax to catch the baddies and in two serials the lead pairs or one of the lead pairs pretended to be having a major fight (while in reality they were deeply in love) so that they could reveal some truth that the baddie was hiding.

All of these are plot points that are being used in Junoon right now (or according to spoilers, going to be used in the near future!) – AAARRRGH! Creativity has left the room people!

Naturally enough this raises the question – Do all the writers, directors, producers and channel executives write down their ideas on pieces of papers and drop it into a huge cauldron that is hidden in the heart of Mumbai. Do the channel heads go to this cauldron when they feel that the TRPs are falling and pick up one of the 'common ideas' and add it to their story line? Just wondering or like Bua-ji would say 'just joking.'

I am pissed off. Do you know why I am pissed off?  Because the creative forces behind this Junoon are proving to me that I was right to start with – I should not have wasted my time on a daily soap. Oh I know this is only a serial. I know that it is not going to change anything in my day-to-day life – I still have to figure what is to be made for breakfast and what is to be packed for lunch for the hubby and kid; I still have to meet my writing deadlines and I have to buy groceries, meet friends for a chat, fill gas, pick up the dress I gave for alteration and so on and so forth – but you see guys, what Junoon did for me was to keep the romance alive in an otherwise nice but ordinary life. AND. YOU. ARE. KILLING. THE. ROMANCE. FOR. ME!

Guys I am still hanging in here hoping that things can be salvaged. Please don't let me down. Keep Junoon truly alive and passionate.

@Junoonian: Welcome to the big bad world and highly frustrating world of Indian dailies, trust me all of us (Junoonins)hear are for the same reason cause we fell madly and crazily in love with the Junnon of Prithvi and Meera, with the village setting, with the awesome villaniess  of Lakhu and kalki, the very supportive and understanding pandit and of course DT.

Originally posted by: sabaSpeaks

@Junoonian: Welcome to the big bad world and highly frustrating world of Indian dailies, trust me all of us (Junoonins)hear are for the same reason cause we fell madly and crazily in love with the Junnon of Prithvi and Meera, with the village setting, with the awesome villaniess of Lakhu and kalki, the very supportive and understanding pandit and of course DT.

We all were of the belief that this show is definitely different from the rest of the crap which is shoved in our face on the name of entertainment, no body in this forum could tolerate them and hence when Junoon started it was like a breath of fresh air, it was like yeah finally we got something that would salvage our daily cravings.Two highly strong individuals who werent ready to bowed to any one forget each other on opposite paths and against the whole world , super awesome breath taking village surrondings which was so much better than the closed and cliched indoors,baddies badder than you could imagine and leads fighting against every thing which was against and stillcouldn'tstop theexplainablepull for each other.. we were in heaven.There was the dark past, individual and combined, of every character, there was childhood crush (one way)which could have been superbly developed to create diffrences between the alreadyestrangedcouple .. sigh .. I can go and on.

But then s**** happened and some one supposedly gave the super awesome idea of let's trash all thebrillianceand novelty and follow the cliched path

But then by that time our systems were damaged beyond repair, we got so hooked to the show that wecouldn'tdetach, trust me we all are trying and still havn't figured a way to stop loving them and watch something else.

Since we all are humans and optimism and hope is hard wired into us ,we cant help but to hope that things will change for better and we may somehow get back our old Junoon back with which we fell in love.

you are more than welcome to join ,wait and rant with us.

Hi Saba so true. I am so badly addicted to Junoon or should I say the old episodes of Junoon that I am not able to quit it - in the hope that they will bring the magic back n I don't want to miss it. So yup waiting, hoping n venting n ranting with all of you. 😭

Originally posted by: Junoonian

Hi Saba so true. I am so badly addicted to Junoon or should I say the old episodes of Junoon that I am not able to quit it - in the hope that they will bring the magic back n I don't want to miss it. So yup waiting, hoping n venting n ranting with all of you. 😭

Hi Junoonian and Saba, 

stated liking this serial coz of aditya mouni
but it is full of bloopers n confusions

Dear junoon team, l'm extremely frustrated, irritated, nd irked with you ppl!!! 😡 hv all of u gone blind, deaf nd dumb nd crazy at da same time? !! What exactly is your plan with what ws 1ce known as Junoon?! Trn it into a cheap irritating serial nd put da final nails on da coffin nd end it fast?!! 😡 😡 😡 1 crazy love triangle wsnt over nd u come up with another-how innovative! 1 banner hd da villain, bt still Mithvi lukd romantic, bt dis new banner!!! Yuck! Its completely disgusting! 🤢 who givs all dese stupid nd suicidal ideas pls I'd love to strangle dt person to death! 😡 we r requestingfor sth better nd dis is what u giv us?!!m most disgusted with myself dt I watch dis show at all nd keep hopn u'll bring da old magic bck nd kip askn , in fct begging u ppl 4 mkn it better...I m always very optimistic bt today m honestly givn up on you junoon..
U've turnd a joke out of a love story nd misused da potential of such a compatible nd sizzling lead couple..no promos, no repeats..it seriously isn't worth my time anymore, especially aftr seeing dis new awful banner, , where Mithvi seems separated, m out of here.. I've hd my fills of ekta kapoor style serials, nd since u r tkn junoon in dt direction, I might as well leave. .no more requests, no pleading.
M nt going to bang my head on da wall anymore..dt is wat requesting u ppl results in..gudbye junoon...