Remembering Manohar Shyam Joshi writer, journalist, scriptwriter & the father of Indian soap opera on his 86th birth anniversary.

Remembering Manohar Shyam Joshi writer, journalist, scriptwriter & the father of Indian soap opera on his 86th birth anniversary.

Hum Log was not only his but also one of the most iconic tv serials of India. It was the first serial drama series on the Indian subcontinent. It began telecast on Doordarshan, India’s national network on 7 July 1984, then the only television channel of India. It is the story of an Indian middle-class family of the 1980s and their daily struggles and aspirations.

It was created on the lines of a Mexican television series, Ven Conmigo (1975), using the education-entertainment methodology.The idea of the TV series came to then Information and Broadcasting Minister, Vasant Sathe, after a Mexican trip in 1982. Soon the idea for Hum Log was developed in collaboration with writer Manohar Shyam Joshi, who scripted the series, and filmmaker, P. Kumar Vasudev, who went on to direct the series. The title score was composed by music director Anil Biswas.

At the end of every episode, veteran Hindi film actor Ashok Kumar discussed the ongoing story and situations with the audience using Hindi couplets and limericks. In later episodes, introduced the actors who played various characters in the serial and end his monologue with the various Indian language versions of the words “Hum Log”.