The simple seedhi-saadhi middleclass girl with the "right" values strides confidently into college…only to be confronted by TV’s notion of an upmarket floozie who resembles Sushmita Sen on a bad-hair day.

"You Vern! Why don’t you find some other college for yourself?" Bad hair spits out as her upmarket colleague(looking somewhat embarrassed at the aggressive snobbery) tries not to squirm.

But Pooja is determined to stick it out…And so, it appears, are serials about working-class aspirations. Aeons ago Prakash Jha made Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne for Doordarshan. Today’s remvamped Mungerilal is Jassi. And now Jassi has company in Pooja the wannabe filmmaker in Yeh Meri Life Hai who wants to be a filmmaker. And guess who inaugurated her aspirations? Karan Johar in person strode into Yeh Meri Life Hai as the girls on campus went ooh and aah.

"Lights, kam-era, ack-sun!" Pooja’s vernie accent is so thick it’s like a brick doing the great Indian soap trick. Welcome to Indian television’s ‘hole’ of fame. Jassi who recommends Yeh Meri Life Hai seems to have temporarily become the new yardstick of middleclass values. Even Ekta Kapoor’s Kehnna Hai Kuch Mujhko and Koi Dil Mein Hai purport to project the aspirations of the middleclass woman.

Has Sony Entertainment become the champion of the underdogs? Or is it only trying to combat Star’s glamour-driven soaps?

Zee seems stuck between the desire to strike out and strike gold. In the process some of their soaps look like a cross between Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham and Ankur. Kittie Party has turned bizarre. Rewa(Kavita Kapoor) was stabbed. And Manju (Poonam Dhillon) is accused of the crime. Another woman who looks like pop star Donna Summer on a bland-hair day, has infiltrated Rewa’s home while she’s recuperating in hospital. The Other Woman describes exactly where Rewa’s husband‘s underwear is kept in the cupboard. Soon she’ll describe what’s in the underwear.

In Kittie Party the scriptwriter’s idea of excitement is to throw in as many women as possible in various ritzy combinations simulating a cosmetic conflict. Thanks, but I’d rather watch Sahara Manoranjan’s Kuch Pal Saath Tumhara where the drama is focussed clenched and quite compelling in a bluntly conventional way. The story of a young woman who discovers life after widowhood, only to find her ‘dead’ husband back in her life is strewn with affectionate nostalgic touches. Asha Parekh‘s soaps have always been special. Kora Kagaz on Star spoke out in favour of a deserted wife’s right to rebuild her life, even if the new man is her own brother-in-law.

In Kuch Pal Saath Tumhara the plea for feminine rehabilitation is strewn with dramatic flourishes that are delectably spindly and yet forthright. Unarguably one of the channel’s quality products it compares very favourably with the atrocious Zameen Se Aasman Tak. Not a single actor or twists in the plot grab you in this event-clogged soap about various couples flaunting their febrile affections with the ferocious flamboyance of colours during Holi.

Everyone screams his or her dialogues so hard in I’m sure they can be heard…zameen se aasman tak. And the situations are unintentionally hilarious. Last week the hero Karan brought his girlfriend (Sangeeta Ghosh) to meet his parents. Someone screamed, "She’s a bar dancer!" Bar bar dekho! Ghosh looked like she had seena ghost. "Haven’t you told your family the truth about me?" She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

Karan looked guilty. "Er I planned to…after the engagement."

Why after the engagement? He could’ve waited until after the first baby, become a boozard and and christened the child Chandni Barfly.

Jokes aside the soaps need a serious crash course in basic plot construction. The serials about gender equations are so lopsided and biased towards the woman’s point of view that you look at something like Kehna Hai Kuch Mujhko with some hope of seeing the male emerge from the shadows.

Now that Rohit Roy has joined the cast we may yet see the male species get a Roy deal. If nowadays you see Pallavi Joshi blushing over the kitchen stove while frying puris, attribute it to the Roy Boy’s largesse. He plays a teevee tycoon who wants the protagonist to direct a woman-oriented serial called, ahem ahem, Kehna Hai Kuch Mujhko.

That the character is modelled on Ekta Kapoor is obvious to anyone who knows her. Like Ekta Rohit makes serials , folds his hands before the deities each morning and says Jai Mata Di when he’s happy.

But if you want to really watch a soap that provides hope to the young and ambitious city slicker watch HBO’s frankly upfront Sex & The City where the socialities rub shoulders(and a lot more) with the wannabes, and where the wannabes just wanna be in the right bed. Last week Charlotte broke off her engagement with her nice but dull man.

"What’s it with you women? You go on about marriage? And when a guy proposes, you say no?"

Eternal mystery posed as an off-the-cough-cough remark! Then there was the socialite’s husband who was disappointed to know one of the protagonist was not lesbian. "We needed a token lesbian couple at our parties."