How Zee Zindagi is connecting lives across borders through popular culture

Zee Zindagi showcases popular Pakistani dramas, a soothing and refreshing attempt to show Indian viewers a slice of Pakistani life and culture.
Zee Television’s newly launched channel – Zee Zindagi which goes by the tagline of “Jodey Dilon Ko” (connecting hearts) – has been received with warmth and excitement by Indian audiences. The channel showcases Pakistani dramas for which there is a huge and untapped audience demand in India.

Strained relations between the two neighbours had resulted into restrictions on the exchange of media such as books, newspapers, broadcast channels, films, music videos, folk art, and theatre. Despite this, Bollywood movies and Hindi films actors remain hugely popular in Pakistan, while Pakistani artists have frequently crossed the border to work in the Indian entertainment industry. Popular culture whose role in shaping perceptions is quite significant has cultivated stereotypes while depicting the ‘other’. In such a scenario, Zee Zindagi is a novel venture and a bold initiative by a mainstream media channel to offer to Indians a slice of Pakistan’s life and culture. It also brings in an amount of freshness and innovation to Indian television content.

A few years ago, with stumbling blocks in Indo-Pak relations it was difficult to imagine such an exchange in the mainstream media. Majority of Indians who tend to believe that all Pakistanis are backward, treat their women shabbily and possess a parochial outlook will now be exposed to the realities of life in Pakistan.

The channel is aptly titled “Zindagi” since popular culture is actually supposed to be a reflection of people’s lives, their trials and tribulations, aspirations, and desires. It is gradually emerging as a medium that can connect two sets of people – a majority of whom have not met each other, or have met each other with much difficulty, have not been able to visit places in the ‘other’ country, or have not had chances to interact with people who live ‘normal’ lives across the border. Hence, the ‘other’ is visualised as someone alien or unfamiliar.

A student of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Sehr Nisar believes that the broadcast of Pakistani dramas on Zee Zindagi offers a new ray of hope to peace talks between the two countries. She feels that this is the best medium to let Indians know Pakistani culture and way of life, thereby breaking stereotypes and bringing a kind of positive energy to the troubled relationship. With storylines that are so refreshing, plots so simple and closer to life, characters so believable and portrayals so charming – that you cannot help but admire the way simple stories are narrated with conviction. Be it the story of ambitious yet simple Kashaf (Sanam Saeed) in Zindagi Gulzar Hai, or the story of bubbly Zara (Maya Ali) in Aunn Zara, or the engaging and socially sensitiveKash Main Teri Beti Na Hoti.

A still from Aunn Zara
Pic – Wikimedia Commons

Popular culture can work as a powerful force for peace and change since it offers simple life stories—those that can act as bonds between conflicting populations. In many conflict zones across the world, there have been examples of positive roles of popular culture in stimulating change and humanizing enemy images. Letting people see what kind of lives the ‘other’ leads is a good way of shedding stereotypes, and a part and parcel of peace initiatives that must be encouraged between governments.

Qurat Ul Ain Ansari, a young entrepreneur from Lahore opines, “I wonder why it took so long, when we here in Pakistan have been enjoying Indian dramas, movies, and award functions since many years. More and more Pakistani shows, songs, movies and dramas should be promoted in India as it will lessen the distances between us and develop a feeling of apna-pan“. Pakistani dramas are meaningful and depict the struggles of ordinary Pakistanis, their life values, cultural ethos and offer life lessons that have been so beautifully put up to let the viewer feel at home with the characters and their life stories.

Chintan Girish Modi, founder of Friendships Across Borders: Aao Dosti Karein believes, “These TV shows will play a very positive role in changing attitudes that Indians hold towards Pakistanis. Viewers will get to see a whole range of characters, and that will make a difference. The assumption that all Pakistani women are Muslim, burqa-clad, and oppressed needs to change.” His personal favourites are Kashaf and Rafia from Zindagi Gulzar Hai – both quite different from each other but strong, resolute, hardworking, and self-respecting women.

For long, popular culture in India and Pakistan has served as medium for strengthening bitterness and perpetuating stereotypes. Now, however, popular culture can take a lead in smoothening of ties by holding aloft the mantle of peace. People on both sides who fear change and are unsupportive of peaceful relations resist cultural exchanges. Such groups in Pakistan have often demanded a ban to be imposed on Hindi movies and TV soaps, for they believe this will pollute Pakistani culture and adversely impact the youth of the country.

Title credits from Zindagi Gulzar Hai
Pic – Wikimedia Commons

Similar elements in India have expressed strong dislike for Pakistani artists who come and perform in the country. As a matter of fact, any scenario of hostile relations has had immediate effects on cultural and sporting exchanges. Devika Mittal, Convener (India), Aaghaz-e-Dosti  - a peace and friendship initiative between India and Pakistan says, “One of the strongest forces that sustains conflict is a lack of communication and a lot of miscommunication. The serials that are being shown on Zindagi are breaking these stereotypes by highlighting similarities in terms of language, culture, customs, thinking and even in our problems.”

While these dramas could anyway be accessed on the internet, bringing them to Indian audiences via television is a major step that could propel peace between the two nations. One cannot help but notice glaring differences between Pakistani and Indian TV soaps, the latter stretching beyond audience imagination to insipid story lines of scheming and heavily decked up women busy in kitchen politics. Some friends have appreciated the elegance and realistic portrayals of Pakistani shows, far removed from the superficialities involved in daily doses of Indian Television.

Kiran Bhatia, a student at The M.S.University in Baroda strongly believes that integration of peace concepts in popular culture can change thinking pattern of masses. “Pakistani Dramas on Indian television will help people in India get a glimpse of the commoners in Pakistan. Familiarity with and exposure to Pakistani lifestyle and thought processes will make the peace process between the two countries citizen centric and thus more effective as change will be generated at the grassroots level,” she says.

Real peace can be achieved and sustained not when it is imposed through mechanisms of power but by people working for it themselves. Zindagi is a great first step in that direction. Muhammad Uzair Niazi, a student from Mianwali in Pakistan deems culture to be the soft power of any nation and advocates mainstreaming of cultural activities on both sides through which coming generations can be made more peaceful and friendly.

A still from Aunn Zara
Pic – Zee Zindagi | Facebook

This attempt by Zee Zindagi to bring Pakistan to the doorsteps of Indian viewers is sure to be lauded and go down in history as a positive and constructive exercise in engaging people of India and Pakistan. “South Asian culture does have great synergies with Indian culture…and these serials help make the other seem very like us. For those of us not lucky enough to meet people from other countries, the insight through these serials is a good beginning,” is what Raakhee Suryaprakash, an international relations analyst based out of Chennai thinks.

As we relish the cross border cultural fare that Zindagi brings to us, we – as Indians and Pakistanis must remember that while we may not be totally similar, we are not completely different as well. And this is what popular culture ought to celebrate to usher in peace and change.

Published on The Alternative, July 17

http://www.thealternative.in/society/how-zee-zindagi-is-connecting-lives-across-borders-through-popular-culture/