Have you ever thought how beautiful we human beings are? Well, definitely not in the present context of the happenings distressing the world. But its true we are beautiful. And we can’t fetch one because to find one you have to be one. We don’t take care of our soul for sure. Just think what have you done lately to nourish it? How it can be healthy if you don’t feed it well?
Anyways, I am digressing. I was thinking to write about something else.
I am a big-time lover of the series made in our neighboring country, Pakistan. Yes, being from India, Pakistan seems to be our perennial enemy but believe me we were together thriving as a single country a few years ago celebrating all our festivals together. We have parted in 1947 out of some reason which doesn’t even make any sense but believe me I get a different vibe while I interact with people across the border.
I have two friends from there. One of them is a doctor from Dera Ghazi Khan and another is from Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. They both belong from different social background for sure but I have noticed one thing in common which I wasn’t expecting. Both of them don’t hate Indians. This was surprising considering the bitter past we had. Just a little bit of browsing in YouTube will depict you the same story if not of mutual admiration. Where you will find digital fights using slurs in the comment section you will also find the mutual love and respect connecting over music or food or something else. So, coming back to where I started, the series made in Pakistan.
There is one named “Pyaare Afzaal” which was just 1 session of 38 episodes. I watched it in one breathe. It started off with a bit sluggish screenplay but the story, dialogue, acting of the casts were top notch. In the era of Netflix and Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms where you can find well crafted stories, this series is completely different. Probably the equipments were not of the best quality or the sets were not that decorated but the ingenuity of the series will definitely hook you up.
Now here comes the concern or apprehension or whatever you phrase it. I believe you can lay out a process or a system that will always produce products of good quality adhering to standards set by you but somehow that benefit comes with the opportunity cost. Probably the system will take away the soul sometimes or you will lose the opportunity of producing something unexpectedly beautiful. An unskeptical mind will counter me by asking “what’s wrong with it? At least we are producing products of good quality.” Certainly, there is nothing wrong with it but the direction it leads us to is definitely to be questioned. Let me elaborate a bit!
A good story translates into a good web series because of a few parameters. It may be the plot of the story, the screenplay, the dialogues, the acting, the production, the brand value of the star cast, even the marketing. There may be some other factors as well but the thing to note is that the later three factors are capital intensive parameters. And there lies the point of concern. Its completely fine if a web series is deemed to be good because of the scale of the production or because some star has worked in it or because they have put posters on the metro rails, in the subways or where your eyes can snuggle in but this model can gradually stifle the possibilities of narrating a good story. A poor writer in some third-tier city might write something exceptionally good but that will never see the lights of the conference room of Netflix office because he or she doesn’t have the “reach”. And to mind you the former three are the actual crafts of the art whereas the later three are the crafts of management. We as audiences hardly encourage to build that eco-system where we can demand or at least get access to good art. We are surreptitiously conditioned to one form of “good” decides by cohort of wealthy people.
Believe me it doesn’t take lot of elements to build a masterpiece but it takes a lot of hard work, patience and understanding to choose those elements. No algorithm can define what to choose or what not to. And this unpredictability is one of the beauties of the human mind.
Well historically speaking, there is another trick which works well with most of the artists. Create something which you feel is heartfelt. If your heart is beautiful, other beautiful hearts will fetch it for sure, if not now, may some hundreds years later.
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