They can tell you if Jodha Akbar will confess their love tonight, whether Zoya of Qubool Hai will find out about her abbu in Friday’s telecast, whether the precap in Sasural Simar Ka was a dream by Roli and also if Saras of Saraswatichandra will forgive and accept his father by next Wednesday. Soap potatoes are not happy with just watching their favourite episodes on TV. They are now delving deeper into the storyline and speculating scene-wise how a show will unfold. TV talk is buzzing on a plethora of online fora with serial watchers not only enjoying pure conjecture but also value adding to a channel’s TRPs and engaging in heated debates about a show’s future and viability. Deebashree Mohanty tells you how this fan frat keeps its favourite episodes alive days after it is aired

• Shows on Star Plus, Zee TV, Sony and Colors have maximum fora on the Internet
  
• Saraswatichandra, Jodha Akbar, Diya Aur Bati Hum, Madhubala... and Qubool Hai have the maximum number of fan pages while Balika Vadhu and Pavitra Rishta are on a downslide. Beintehaa is also getting a lot of traction offscreen
  
•  Unofficial fan fora of Saraswatichandra and Jodha Akbar  are 3,117 and 3,008 each while Qubool Hai has about 2,998 open forum pages
  
• According to indiaforums.com, there are 1.5 lakh unofficial fan Facebook pages for these serials
  
• On an average, these serials draw 700-1,000 comments daily
  
•  Most commented pages in desirulez.com have been for Qubool Hai with as many as 7,868 comments on a single episode in December 2013. JA’s episode No 165 comes a close second on indiaforums.com with a whopping 5,699 comments
  
• There are 45 % men who comment, provide analysis and give their predictions on these online websites
  
•  Channels have dedicated team of operators and creative people to answer queries, take suggestions and even rubbish spoiler alerts by angry  off screen fans
  
• Balika Vadhu’s creative director has paid heed to the advise and changed track twice for the benefit of its viewers. There has been a noticeable change in TRPs
  
• Qubool Hai and Beintehaa’s forums are the most controversial. Some sites had to close down under pressure when the arguments heated up
  
•   It is estimated that members dedicate more than 4 hours a day to these fora
  

Is she pregnant or notIJ Baccha kiska hai... , is she sleeping aroundIJ Tell me. Tell me quick. I will kill them both,” Virat Soni, owner and founder of Newage Solutions, a computer hardware store in Canada, was asking his wife on her cellphone at midnight (India time). He wanted to know all about his favourite soap on the dish. His wife was expecting this call and was ready with details.

“Only when I told him it was the latest MU (abbreviation for mis-understanding in forum lingo) that he was at peace. It’s not possible to ward him off. It is strange but true,” Divya, an embarrassed housewife-cum-blogger-cum-thread beginner (one who starts off the discussion on a particular episode in a forum) tells you.

There are many like Soni who are hyper-addicted to daily soap and take every twist and turn seriously. While some don’t mind missing work to catch the repeat telecast of the soap, there are others who spend considerable time deciphering and predicting what course the serial will take.

“Serials have always had huge impact value but now it has become a virtual health hazard. A viewer from Jhansi committed suicide in November 2010 after participating in Rakhi Ka Insaaf where he was humiliated beyond redemption. Also in 2009, a man tried to kill his wife after watching an episode of Sach Ka Saamna. There have been many other cases in which people have done silly things after watching TV serials. As if the onscreen influence was not enough, viewers now have the added dose of forums and fan pages where a particular episode is dissected and point-wise evaluated by members/guests. It is healthy if done in the right spirit but when it converts into soap addiction, it can be lethal,” Ajay Kilsokar, Mumbai-based TV commentator Ajay Kirloskar tells you. He also manages buzzontv.com that comes out with rankings for TV soap and invites members to post comments.

There are about 1,300 dedicated sites to specific serials which invite viewers to post and discuss the happenings episode-wise. There are 15 channels which have put up their content on the Internet. There are over 50,000 Facebook pages on serials put up by fans. Although there are some legal websites and fan pages put up by the GEC itself, there are many other pages on serials floating around on the Internet.

“Presence in the social networking era is must but we did  not see this coming. There is no way you can curb so much information and talk around a serial. Sometimes, the reaction is positive but then some of these fights get ugly. It becomes difficult for us to live up to the expectations of our viewers because each one wants the story to proceed his own way. That is not how it works in the TV industry,” Prashant Bhatt, head of content for Colors, tells you. He is the man behind the soap dish operating between 7pm and 11pm. Bhatt tells you that handling this kind of viewer pressure is taking a toll on production houses.

last week, Colors pipped arch rivals Sony to make it to second position with 504 GVMs but some of its serials took a serious beating. When Vivian D’sena quit Madhubala... and the show took a 20-year leap, 5,300 fans of a Madhubala... fan club page on FB decided to corner the creative director and force an explanation out of him.

“A group of 35-40 people forcibly entered our Andheri West office and demanded a ‘chat’ with our channel head. They were unhappy with the way Madhubala... was going. They stayed for four hours and our top boss had to intervene to sort the matter out,” a channel source said.

For Bhatt, an angry mob of fans outside the office building is nothing new. But he doesn’t want to comment on any specific incident. “Madhubala..., Uttaran and Balika Vadhu have been the most discussed soaps on various forums. Now, Rangrasiya is catching up. I don’t have the time to read through all the viewer analyses but we have a dedicated creative team which is well-informed about what our fans liked and what they did not,” Bhatt tells you.

According to tellynagari.com, an online site, a live thread on Rangrasiya’s episode No 38 which went on air on February 19, goes up to 77 pages with as many as 2,098 people commenting on how the episode went. Compare it to a 46-page discussion on whether Sanchi (Balika Vadhu fame) should have gone to the police after the date rape, and you know which show is doing better. Do channel heads perceive it that wayIJ “No, it is an indicator at best but we don’t change the course of our serials just because our fans feel Sanchi should have waited before spilling the beans. TRPs don’t happen because we show exactly what our viewers want. Sasural Simar Ka has a very weak social media presence but there is no considerable drop in its TRP,” Bhatt gives you an example.

But angry fans tell you they have it in them to influence creatives to act as per their wishes. Sandhya Arora, a lecturer with lady Shriram College in New Delhi, is an avid TV viewer and critic and she feels her analysis strikes a chord with the creatives. “I love writing a short summary about the episode and following it up with a detailed

analysis about some parts which I liked and some others which were unnecessary intrusion into the story. I love opining on Jodha Akbar and Qubool Hai because these shows are not atypical. Both have a refreshing take and there is a lot in them to comment upon. I have called Zee TV office at least 15 times since the show started and they have taken my suggestions seriously. During the fake pregnancy track in JA for instance, I pestered them to not make Jalal a part of this huge MU because after all he was supposed to be an intelligent shehenshah and not some dumb lover who believed everything that was fed to him. Thankfully, they gave his character some respite,” Arora says, adding that the last few episodes of JA have also been the reason for much dispute on multiple forums.

Qubool Hai is a controversial show which lives up to its reputation on the Internet too. With one lakh registered fans  in various fan pages on FB, Qubool Hai (QH) is top ranked on forum discussions. Site owners and content editors tell you they have a tough time skimming messages and discussions on this serial because most of them cannot be published.

“After the first week of its debut, the QH thread on our site got registration requests from all over the world. We have over 3,219 guests who are regulars and another 1,000 who comment episode wise. It was a challenge for us to surf through the content to ensure no religious sentiments were hurt. We have managed to keep the tone down but there have been instances when serious political discussions have sparked off. Once, we  had to close the site for a few days just so our guests got time to cool off,” Anil Thadani, owner of tellyworld.com, says.

While Thadani’s website is getting popular with hits (currently ranked 1,798), he says his main objective was never to spark debate or harm the showmakers. But some verbal duels have ended up as threat calls to the channel.

In January 2014, when Raqesh Vashisht replaced Karan Singh Grover as Dr Asad Khan, Grover’s woman fans didn’t take it too well. There were heated arguments with a lot of religious innuendos thrown in in most discussion forums. Some sites closed down for a week. But desidrama.com posted a spoiler that Zoya was going to get killed in a fire set by her own father— and this angered fans.

“I called up the Zee office to get a confirmation but the operator was rude. I couldn’t let the showmakers take our feelings for granted. They had a huge build-up on the Asad-Zoya romance and when finally the wedding was near we were told that they had taken an U-turn just so that they can build more on that hype and up their TRPs. Enough was enough. I was welcomed by the front office staffers and they told me that someone from the creative unit would call me regarding my  complaints. One Aninditta Guha called the next day and told me that the news was incorrect and that the wedding would happen,” Ashima Dhingra, content supervisor at an advertising firm based in Guragon, tells you.

Apart from the huge pan-India network on specialised forums, it is the overseas janata that is most vocal. Such is the hype around the serial that they first read all written updates and then watch the soap when it is aired in their countries. According to tellytamasha.com a website which encourages NRI networks and forums apart from posting live videos of the show, the NRI population on show pages is almost 60 per cent. Most viewers/bloggers are from Canada, South Africa, the US and Australia. But slowly, Dubai and Pakistani viewers have started visiting these  pages. They have a lion’s share of comments.

“Pakistani viewers look forward to Jodha Akbar and Beintehaa on Colors. They also comment a lot on Uttaran. Although about 90 per cent hide their identities, we know their base location from the domain they log in from. South African Indians were also big on the blogging bit but some of them have taken a back seat. People from the US are active too,” Rajesh Dhoomal, the admin for pages in tellytamasha, says.

Although foreigners can do little but provide analysis and predictions based on hypothesis, the Indian fan network works overtime to play spoilsport for the channel and the production house. So spoiler pictures taken clandestinely from the shoot location which suggests way forward of the show, to posting alerts and prediction based on interactions with creatives within the channel, there is a lot happening offscreen.

“The mission is to satisfy our curiosity before the episode airs. We rely on Twitter pictures and updates by stars to make a valid prediction. Most TV celebrities today are active on social sites and keep updating their status vis-a-vis their serials,” Arora says, giving an example from Jodha Akbar.

Meghna Naidu who played a cameo of a vishkaniya (Benazir) in Ekta Kapoor’s serial  had been tweeting pictures of herself in various costumes including ones in the Mughal attire. The forum was on fire with speculation that Jalal was going to make her his begum and that her role was going to continue for a month or two. “Based on khoofiya pictures and tweets made by TV celebs we do a get a hint on the what’s going to happen. Sometimes it works but at times the creatives manage to hoodwink us,” Arora states.

Apart from speculation, these members also raise important social issues through their discussion thread. Issues like genocide, atrocity on women and the inconsistencies that these serials propel are addressed in these forums.

“It has a ricochet effect on the creative team which starts pursuing an angle if it has generated considerable hype. During the BV phase, we noticed that many people wanted Dadi Sa to side with Anandi when her grandson was having a live-in relationship with Gauri. The original plan was to wrap this in two episodes but because it got such a humongous response, we decided to take that track ahead instead. BV was a chart topper during that week,” Bhatt says.

There is a reason why channel heads are willing to take note of fan talk.. The profile of the fan who spends 4-5 hours on these forums daily is not that of a typical housewife. He or she is a working individual. They don’t make absurd comments based on the actors’ looks or physique. The comments and suggestions are always backed by logic. They take the pains to do extensive research before giving their suggestions.

“The forum is not a bias hub. Equal weightage is given to comments made by women and men. In fact, on indiaforums.com, more than 45 per cent guests are men. They are keen to know the future of a serial. Also, soaps invite more discussion than reality shows,” Abhay Dwinkar a guest on  indiaforums.com, says.