Different yardstick
BHAWANI CHEERATH
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`Sakhi' changes the format, content and look of a `women's programme.'
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MAKEOVER: Gita Bakshi anchors `Sakhi,' which has completed 200 episodes on Amrita TV.
Is uninterrupted telecast of over 200 episodes a mark of success of a programme? Gita Bakshi, the anchor of `Sakhi'(Amrita TV), however, looks at the yardstick of popularity from a totally different angle.
"Sakhi, I believe has gone about the whole exercise quite differently? The thrust has been on, `What is it that a woman should know?' She must know everything: how to cook, legal aid, being a caregiver, coping with illnesses... the list is endless. There is no way one can limit the topics that affect her," says the anchor who has taken her programme off the beaten track and made a success of it.
Going by the common definition of `women's programme,' it should have been about cuisine or heated exchanges on topics that are sometimes titillating. On the contrary, the guest on the maiden show of `Sakhi' was a fisherwoman. What this fisherwoman, who is at our doorsteps every morning, had to say and the way she said it was a revelation,- "Here was the woman of grit who had a 100 questions to ask. Each one of her statements held a mirror on society, warts and all."
Shorn of glamour, her shows, produced by Bindu Sajan and A.R. Madanan, focus on the women we see around us every day. "The women on my shows are achievers. In fact, they have power and strength of a kind that can come out of intense experiences. That gives them a strength that is born from conviction," she says.
Feedback from regulars help Gita schedule shoots for topics which are trouble spots in the social fabric, but are often swept under the carpet. One such theme she spoke about was the guest who did not want her face masked because she was going to speak on AIDS, and how it affected her family. "Why should I? I married the person chosen by the elders. If I contract the disease through him, how am I to be blamed? "
Guests on the show, be they politicians, social workers or a housewife have the freedom to air their views and not get into the trap of a language constructed for the medium, and that in itself is a major reason for the uninterrupted run of `Sakhi.'
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