Neenv was a serial that used to air on Doordarshan DD Metro. It was first aired in the year 1992 but due to its immense popularity it had rerun running through till the late months of 1994. The show is about a bunch of children in a boarding school in the mountains. The story is about a boy ‘Anurag Sharma’ who joins a residential school and is assaulted by the members of the school who belong to the ‘upper class’ and is relentlessly pushed around, the serial ends on a happy note with him becoming the school head boy.
Each episode in the serial detailed the manner in which the boys get into trouble and how they then proceed to extricate themselves out of it. There characters included a school captain, the school geek, the school fatso who was inevitably thinking about food, the sympathetic teacher who always understood the motivations of the boys, the teacher’s daughter, who was the only girl allowed in their exclusive group and the schools’ resident bullies, many of whom experience a change of heart as they grow older through the series, and the protagonist of the series Anurag.
This show made boarding school glamorous for those who had never attended them and evoked nostalgia in those who had. The show set the standard for teenage shows of that period and the people who were young enough to have watched it then, still, swear by it. Growing up certainly did not dull the view many held of life at boarding schools without the assistance of family, only the companionship of the friends that were made there, friendships that would last a lifetime. The show was among the golden age of DD serials, one that has long since passed, even hints of whose past glories cannot be seen in today’s Television serials.
Shows like Neev, Arohan, Fauji, Trishna, Nukkad, Yeh Jo Hain Zindagi, Byonkesh Bakshi, Udaan, Tehkikaat, Reporter, Dekh Bhai Dekh, made the lives of many, and influenced an entire generations of children for whom the Television made the most positive impact. The show is a class apart when compared to the ‘reality shows’ and other serials that appear on TVs today. An ode to a bygone era that is unlikely to visit the Indian Siler screen ever again.