A hit radio series called Taru.

Taru, PCI’s Hindi radio serial drama, has been on the air since February 2002 covering some of the most poverty-stricken states in northern India. It is estimated that the radio serial has a listenership of between 20 to 25 million people. The continuing story of a 21-year-old woman who resists harmful cultural norms and pursues further education has inspired avid listeners like Soni to emulate the character who is charged with positive values.

Devendra Sharma, a former PCI Media Leadership fellow who is now involved with the Taru project, traveled to Bihar in December 2002 to document the effects of the serial drama on its listeners. Armed with a small video camera, Mr. Sharma gathered video testimonies of Taru listeners from the villages of Abirpur, Kamtaul, Madhopur, and Chandrahatti. Respondents are mainly comprised of poor dalit (lower caste) women, the most muted social group in Bihar.

Video documentation is an innovative approach to conducting entertainment-education research. In Mr. Sharma’s case, this approach vividly captures an important emotional dimension to the responses of his subjects to the radio serial against the backdrop of their environment. In his field notes, Mr. Sharma recalls when he was invited into the home of Soni, one of the members of a Taru listeners’ group.

“As I went inside, I saw that her mother was cooking,” Sharma writes. “Her house —- made of mud, reed, and husk —- was in a dilapidated condition. With great courage and resolve, Soni told me on film that her father was unemployed and that they could hardly make ends meet. What struck me most was that even with a large family to look after [Soni has four siblings], and difficult financial circumstances, Soni and her mother were fiercely proud and dignified.”

On the film Soni said, “When Taru and her mother, Yashoda, can fight harsh circumstances in the radio serial, why can’t we?”

Sharma remarks: “We have captured on tape, shots of listeners’ groups listening to Taru and the discussions following the broadcast. Most importantly, we have captured villagers’ remarkable initiatives that have started due to the influence of Taru.”

These initiatives include a basic level school started by a group of teenage Taru listeners. About 50 children, who previously did not have access to education, regularly attend the classes held around a village water well.

In a remarkable example of life imitates art, one listener named Sunita started an adult literacy group for dalit women. This effort was motivated by the similar actions of a Taru character.

Researchers, employing a method called participatory photography, handed out eight disposable cameras to Taru listeners with instructions for them to capture the radio serial’s influence on their lives as well as on their community. The effort resulted in over 200 photographs that offer qualitative data not captured by interviews alone.

One picture was taken of a girl named Vandana, standing next to a young man of her age. When asked what the picture signified, she said, “This is my boyfriend…I feel comfortable talking to him and sharing my thoughts with him. I am not shy and timid like the other girls of Kamtaul who feel nervous talking to boys. If Taru and Shashikant [Taru’s male co-worker in the radio serial] can be friends, why can’t we?” Vandana credits Taru for this confidence.

Some audience members are so endeared to the character, that they speak as if Taru was a real person. “I wish Taru could come to our village,” says Kumari Neha, a listener. “She is so sweet and polite. If I learn so much from hearing her voice, what will she do to me when I see her in person?”

Before listening to Taru, I did not even use to look at books,” says Soni, a 15-year old girl from the village of Abirpur in the Indian province of Bihar. She is referring of course to PCI’s successful radio soap opera of which she is an avid listener. “But now I have started to read whatever I get —- whatever books my father and mother get from outside. Whenever I get time from household work, I read. Sometimes I go to sleep while reading.”

If Taru’s remarkable effects take root, Kumari may get her wish and indeed meet not one but many real life Tarus in her village and throughout Bihar.

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