Rule Book for Indian TV Serials: Part 1

Hi guys! I had posted this rule book under comments section in Humko Tumse Ho Gaya Hai Pyaar first episode written update. I felt I should post this as a separate article in parts. I have added more rules too. Please enjoy!! Inviting comments from all!
Presenting the rule book for Indian TV Serials!
Want to run your serials for a decade? Do you want your audience to go crazy about your serial? Follow these simple and effective rules. Assured success.
1. The hero and heroine should be parallel opposites. Either hero or heroine must be bold. Very few times, both can be strong. But later, you can change the character say from trusting to suspicious.
2. The hero’s family and heroine’s family should be total opposites too. Either, culturally like Punjabi vs Bengali; or outlook, say Traditional family vs modern; Rich vs Poor; or both extremely rich and enemies.
3. The hero and heroine should fight with each other in first meet. Will keep fighting in successive meets and then finally fall in love.
4. Introduce parallel male and female leads. Both guys fall in love with the heroine. Heroine will love only the hero. Other guy is just a friend. Then, all of a sudden one more girl will enter who will also love the hero. Would feel so jealous of heroine and would try to break them apart. Sometimes, the hero’s one family member will help this lady.
5. Show parallel love story of hero n heroine’s brother/sister/friend. But don’t focus on them too much. Likewise, hero’s sister too should keep changing character good-evil-good-evil
6. First buildup a beautiful romance between the hero and heroine. So beautiful that your heart goes awwww (E.g. Thapki – Dhruv) and you feel OMG! They’re perfect. But some or other misunderstanding would arise, they drift away and again patch up realizing mistake.
7. Too happy and romantic stuff? How can it continue? So, now the heroine will be married off to different guy – usually a guy whom she hates, conspiracy by family or the vamp who loves hero. The hero left broken hearted. The hero’s mom/family all happy. Slowly, the heroine would fall in love with hubby and the hero would turn evil.
8. The mom in law never accepts the bahu. No matter what happens, the saas should hate the bahu for snatching her son. Over the period, she can accept. Any problem comes, the bahu will fix without family’s knowledge. At every situation, the bahu should be suspected of not being faithful to the family and she should keep proving self. The wrongdoers should never be suspected. Even if the wrongdoings come out, those members should be forgiven immediately or ignore like nothing happened. Occasionally, kick one person out, who can come back to take revenge.
Note: There should be one family member, typically buaji who hates the bahu. Whenever, saas-bahu unite, she should do something to break them apart.
9. The patriarch of the family, I mean hero/hubby’s father should have a secret family living away. That is, he married some girl of his choice during youth; but had to marry mother of hero/hubby due to family pressure. So from first marriage, hero/hubby’s daddy has a son and daughter. These both come back to claim daddy’s fortune on his death. This can be dragged as per your choice.
Note: This story can also be tweaked by showing the hero/hubby’s small mistake committed in passion i.e., one night with the vamp who also loved the hero/hubby and resulted in a kid. At this point, the heroine can lose trust and go away (hiding fact that she is pregnant). Or this can be just a misunderstanding. This can be a good time to show leap.
10. The leaps. Now, the hubby became hero na, so some small misunderstanding, which can be sorted out easily, should be made huge. Both should lose trust on each other so easily and go separate ways. They shouldn’t talk and patch up. Must hate each other. The saas once again hates the bahu.
11. If there are kids, they should hate the other parent, realize and then try to bring the parents together. The kids can be even twins.
12. There must be some family member who still has grudge against the heroine and would do anything to separate them again.
13. Finally, after patch up, the hubby should die. A new male lead to be introduced and heroine to be married off. The first hero can become good guy. Or continue being evil. Or the dead husband can come back with plastic surgery and take revenge. Or heroine should die and new female comes. And the dead wife returns with plastic surgery.
At this point, you can bring the same actor who played as hero/heroine first. Show in completely opposite character, say if the actor was playing soft spoken or gaanv ki chori now show as bold or very posh and modern.
Note: The never failing hit formula – Kill the wife. Bring her back with plastic surgery done (ignore height and voice differences) and loads of confidence. The hero should get intrigued by her presence. The vamp who was staying with hero as these years will get jealous. After sometime, bring the original actress who played the role of wife in complete opposite character. The hero now will get confused who’s the real wife. The one with changed face after plastic surgery or this humshakal? The wife should try to prove herself and new humshakal should fall in love with the hero. Now drag as per your choice.
14. When everything is settled, show one more leap. In case, you chose the hit formula and didn’t kill the husband before, now you can do so and bring new guy in our perfect heroine/bahu’s life. Either kill the humshakal aurat or send her away disappointed. The heroine can now marry the new guy. The dead husband’s family can either support her or hate her. Drag the story accordingly.
Note: In case, you had shown the hero/hubby’s father having kids from first marriage – turn the step brother as good person falling in love with heroine and turn hubby evil. Then kill the hubby and marry the hubby’s step brother and heroine. Again u can start hate turning to love. This way, you needn’t bring new actor.
15. Now, show the kids. Ensure that there is one daughter from first marriage. The second marriage of heroine can happen with the new guy with a daughter from previous marriage. This will ensure that the age gap isn’t huge. The heroine can have kids from second marriage too. The sisters should either love each other dearly or hate each other.
Note: Adopt the above rule if u didn’t show any extramarital affair of first husband and love child (preferably a daughter. This daughter to be shown as good as gold. And to be preferred over heroine’s own daughter. Either way, so much masala)
16. Show next leap. All the kids grown up. The first marriage daughter should be a brat and the second marriage daughter should be as good as gold. The heroine mom should prefer second daughter more. This to be the reason for first daughter hating mom. Both sisters should fall in love with same guy. This also can be dragged accordingly.
Note: In case you don’t like the second husband having kids from previous marriage, show that first marriage heroine had twin girls. (Will provide separate rules for Twins in the next part)
17. Never lose the focus on the original bahu.
18. Show one person who was always trust worthy to be evil. All the while, he or she was just pretending. This fact to be discovered by our heroine bahu. To be safe, this trustworthy person turned evil can show the heroine bahu to be mad and sent to mental asylum. Or u can even kill one family member, put blame on heroine bahu and send her to prison.
19. Show next leap. A fire at prison/mental asylum and the heroine bahu smuggled out by one of her kids. Now, you can bring in supernatural stuff – ghost of heroine bahu. (Will include separate section on Supernatural).
20. Depending upon your serial title, drag the story.
Always remember, the more sorrows, twists and senseless it is, more the TRPs!