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The show featured three intrepid police officers solving cases.
“Daya, please do it today.” (Daya, break down the door)
Most Indians will instantly recognize this dialogue from the popular crime show CID, which aired from 1998 to 2018, making it one of the longest-running television shows in India.
The thriller featured three intrepid police officers – ACP Pradyuman, Inspector Daya and Inspector Abhijeet – solving case after case, as no criminal has ever been a match for them. The low-budget episodes had comically simple plots, questionable acting, and all it took for a suspect to confess was a good slap from ACP Pradyuman.
But over the years, the series has become cult, and its characters and dialogues have given rise to a multitude of jokes, memes and reels.
CID is set to return later this month, sparking mixed reactions among its fans. Some are eager to see the three cops in action again, but others say the show's old-world charm might not match the gritty realism of modern cop shows.
Over the past few days, the show's creators have been releasing teasers for upcoming episodes on Instagram, each garnering hundreds of thousands of likes and comments.
Besides the three main characters, the teasers feature familiar tropes and dialogue. These include Inspector Daya opening doors to reveal a suspect's hideout and ACP Pradyuman muttering his iconic phrase, “kuch toh gadbad hai, Daya” (something is wrong, Daya) , signaling both his team and the public that a crime has occurred. .
Trisha Shah, 35, a content creator from Mumbai and fan of the series, says the teasers make her nostalgic.
“CID was one of the few cop shows on television at the time and my parents didn't mind me watching it because of its family content,” says Ms Shah.
“Although it is a crime show, it never showed gruesome violence, sex crimes, strong language or anything unsuitable for family viewing.”
In an interview with Film Companion, an entertainment journalism platform, one of the show's writers said that they even avoided giving characters last names to avoid hurting anyone's feelings.
But the show's wacky storylines more than made up for its primal nature, whether it was ACP Pradyuman returning from the dead or Inspector Daya single-handedly maneuvering a plane full of poison gas to put himself safe.
SET India/YouTube
ACP Pradyuman is one of the most famous characters of the series
In an interview with Forbes magazine, the show's producer, BP Singh, called these scenes and storylines “believable nonsense.”
“You can laugh about it later (about this scene). But for those five minutes, it's so captivating that you don't mind,” he told the magazine.
In a rather comical way, the characters also explained the plots and technologies used to solve crimes through their dialogues, making it easy for even children to understand what was happening.
“The bad guys always got caught and it was heartwarming to watch,” Ms. Shah says. “I don’t think I would enjoy the show today, but at the time it was a big deal.”
In the 1990s, television was big business as it was the only form of home entertainment. At the start of the decade, India relaxed broadcasting rights, making more channels available.
“Initially, channels like Star started airing reruns of American shows like Baywatch and The Bold and The Beautiful. But new entrants like Zee TV and Sony started producing original shows to cater to the Indian audience “, says Harsh Taneja, associate professor of media. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Producers often adapt Western shows for Indian audiences by importing format Bibles – guidelines describing story structure – and modifying them to suit the local context, he explains. Thus, a show like CID often featured plots that closely resembled those of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, an American crime drama.
In the 1990s and 2000s, television became a household staple as citizens' purchasing power increased. Many homes had not one but two televisions, which led producers to create content targeting different age groups, Taneja says.
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After India relaxed its broadcasting rights, more channels became available on TV
Interestingly, the target audience for CID, when it was released in the 1990s, was children aged six to 14. After CID, several other crime-centric shows started populating the channels – from Crime Patrol to Savadhan India. But you could say it was CID that created viewers' appetite for crime shows.
Priya Ravi, 40, remembers eagerly waiting for every episode of CID to air when she was a child. She admits that it was the series that made her push her parents to buy a television for their home.
“Before, the episodes were broadcast twice a week, and at first I would go to a friend's house to watch them. But then I convinced my parents to buy a TV so I could watch the episodes at home. J “I was so happy the day television came along,” says Ms. Ravi.
She says that while she won't be watching new episodes of CID, she will definitely encourage her two children, aged seven and nine, to watch them.
“If the show remains as clean as it was back then, I think it's a great way to introduce children to some of the realities of life and make them vigilant about their safety and their environment “, she said.
“I look forward to the return of the heroic trio.”
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