How the Sad Mukerjea Saga Created the Perfect Soap

Six factors that show how the Indrani Mukherjea-Sheena Bora case has become a real-life soap opera.

Who could have imagined that the purveyors of soap operas would one day get to star in one of their own making? Were it not for the lives at stake, the Indrani Mukerjea-Sheena Bora case that has gripped the nation is resembling one such soap.

Universally Accessible: A successful soap opera is viewed by all. It cuts across demographics, geographies, education and language. Its theme of ‘family life, personal relationships, sexual drama, emotional and moral conflicts’ - as writer Kate Bowles puts it, can be related to by everyone. All you have to do is tune in.

Touchy Themes: Patriarchy, class snobberies, abandoned children, corporate power play, social climbing, lovers from the past, taboo sibling relationships...these are topics Indian society feels very strongly about. Each day and each news update gives millions a chance to air and vent. The public becomes the personal. What social commentator Santosh Desai says in his The Times of India column: “They become characters in our personal novels, and we control their lives which are on lease to us.”

Twists Every Day: Revelations, voices from the past, blood feuds, sibling rivalries, coincidences and sudden twists and turns are what keeps viewers hooked to a soap. Heightened melodrama and the improbable plot reversals is what keep a soap going. Since the time the Indrani Mukherjea-Sheena Bora saga hit the headlines, not a day goes by without investigations throwing up facts and findings that are bizarre, shocking and larger-than-life. Each episode whetting our appetite —like that of the soap viewer —for the darkest and the fantastical.

The Vicarious and the Aspirational: Rich, glamorous, successful people populate the world of the soap opera. Dashing and debonair, they strut their stuff. Now, they also get to flirt with danger from the comfort of their homes. Filicide, charred bodies, mysterious suitcases, concealed offspring, secret letters and midnight knocks by the police, all playing out against a background of power, privilege and money stashed abroad.

Sense of Community: A successful soap promotes discussion. People talk about it at parties, office water coolers and while commuting. Opinions are divided but very firmly held. There is a sense of larger belonging; with the world being divided into people who follow the soap and people who don’t. Very often the lines between fact and fiction blur with actors in real life being identified with the role they portray on screen.

Translates across Media Platforms: Today, the medium is the message. 24x7 TV news tickers, tweets, social media updates, bullet pointers on websites, SMS news alerts on mobiles, front pages in news dailies and cover stories in magazines; the unfolding tragedy is being ‘consumed’ relentlessly. If the murder investigation was an advertising product, its reach and viewership would be enviable.