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Dehleez Eng |
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"DEHLEEZ" MAKES WAVES
A.I.R.'s Hindi serial on insights into Adolescent Sexuality to be broadcast in Regional Languages
"DEHLEEZ" (Threshold), the All India Radio's first
major attempt to use soap opera format for sensitizing and
educating the adolescents has created a sort of record in
popularity.
,.
.
Audience Research showed that some 94 lakh people
were aware of the programme and 80 lakh people were
regular listeners. Some 11,000 listeners had enrolled with
the A.I.R. to conduct regular listening and provide feedback.
"DEHLEEZ", an offshoot of the landmark study
"population Socialisation among Indian Teenagers"
conducted by the Population Foundation of India (with its
Executive Director, Mr Harish Khanna as the Principal
Investigator) in. collaboration with the Populafion
Development Programme of the Cornell University (U.S.A)
and the Operations Research Group (India), received such
a tremendous response from the teenagers (for whom the
programme was meant) that AI.R.'s Director General, Mr
Shashi Kapoor announced at a Press Conference held at
Akashvani Bhavan on December 6, 1994 that despite the
current television explosion, Radio was stilllll.?!!,po~e.t:f!I1
and cost-effective social communication tOol. Ms Usha
Bhasin, Director of the 52-episode series which concluded
in the last week of October 1994 exuded rightful pride on
the successful conclusion of the soap opera which is bound
to prove a trend setter in harnessing mass media for
creating healthy attitudes among the youth on matters
relating to sex, inter-gender relations, family life problems,
STDs and AIDS etc.
The private character of Radio provided the young
listeners in 11 to 20 years age group greater ease to tune
in the intimate atmosphere of the home and get answers to
questions they may have hesitated to ask their parents or
teachers.
Mr Harish Khanna said that during the investigations
to for the first study, 17,185 students-of classes 9 11 (13,404
boys and 3,781 girls) had been questioned on population,
family life and sex knowledge. That provided a fair basis
for a major communication effort to reach the most sensitive
segment of the population. While Ms Dipali Nath of ORG
did a commendable job during the investigations for the
study, Ms Sandhya Dhingra of the PFI rendered pains-
taking assistance in coordinating the programme with the
AI.R.
For sensitive handling of the subject, writers, producers
and education specialists were invited by the Foundation
to work together. The script of the first part of the serial was
written by Mrs Tripurari Sharma, and of the subsequent
parts by Nalini Bhardwaj, Alka Pathak and Rakesh Joshi.
While Mukesh Saxena provided the lyric for the title song,
the music was created by Bhajan Sopori. The highlight of
the series was a prologue and epilogue by the famous
theatre and film personality, Amol Palekar.
It may be mentioned that "DEHLEEZ", the weekly
serial in Hindi was broadcast in 20-rninute episodes from
30 stations of the AI.R. in the Hindi-speaking areas for a
whole year. In view of the unprecedented success of the
experiment, AI.R. has decided to broadcast this programme
in other regional languages, over a period of time.