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Raam
Punjabi :
The King
of Soap Opera
Most traders from the
western Indian province of Sind came to Indonesia to sell cloth and
some eventually made this country their home.
Raam Punjabi, 57
comes from a similar family but instead of trading in textile like his
ancestors he chose to sell dreams.
As president of
Multivision Plus, he dominates prime time television programming in
Indonesia another of his assets is a library of over 900 feature films
most them Indian that are aired directly to millions of homes here
each day on television channels fed by satellite.
 The king of local
soap operas was born in Surabaya,
East Java and liked nothing better even as a child
than to disappear into a pitch dark cinema hall where
little mattered except the silver screen . Ever since
he can remember he has been interested in films.
Although he insists that he wanted to be a film
producer from the age of eight years, his good looks
and charming personality make one believe that he may
well have harbored dreams of being an actor as well.
Raam began his career as an importer of films and
produced Cinta (Love) his first full length movie in
1971 under the banner PT Panorama Films. Over a period
of 17 years he made over a hundred movies and with a
lull in the 19890 of the Indonesian film industry
immediately invested Rp 250 million and switched to
producing soap operas for television.
His company Multivision Plus has since become quite a
factory churning out nearly 12 productions screened
weekly by five television stations. It is estimated
that Multivision Plus has recorded up to 9,000 hours
on screen so far but there is little point in asking
him the titles and the exact number of episodes as he
does not remember. Besides he has to concentrate on
the next episode that is produced on a daily basis for
popular serials like Tersanjung (Flattered) or Bella
Vista.
He is called king of soap operas by some while others
see him just as a dream merchant who has enriched
himself at the cost of peddling illusions to an
audience that is starved of entertainment. His critics
accuse him of concentrating on the obvious, like good
looks, youth and beautiful sets instead of talent
while deciding to launch a soap opera, based mostly on
the same formula that seldom has much to do with
reality.
Considering how highly periodic opinion polls rate his
productions, Raam maintains that he has always given
the public what it wants implying that viewers do not
care for quality as long as they are entertained.
However once in a while Raam condescends to invest in
a rare production like Bukan Perempuan Biasa (An Exceptional Woman) when he allows the director and
actors total creative licence. His latest "artistic"
production is the much awaited Tiga Perempuan (Three
Women) for television once again with legendary
actress Christine Hakim, and director Maruli Ara.
But if asked to choose he would probably enjoy Doa
Membawa Berkah (Blessed by Prayer) better rather than
the kind of television programming propagated by
serious critics and the so called intelligentsia.
He sees entertainment as something that is beyond
reality and goes out of his way to make sure that no
discomfort is caused to the viewer. After all there is
much too much unpleasantness in life repeating it on
screen makes little sense to Raam, both economic and
otherwise.
by
: Mehru Jaffer
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