There are documentaries, of course, and a thousand government-sponsored programmes covering everything from rainwater harvesting and drought to family planning, drug abuse and the many other social issues that fall in between. The reason none of these programmes are ever discussed at our dinner tables or office water-coolers is simple — none of them happen to be interesting.

It is a shame that, in a country where the medium of television has long been recognised as a powerful tool, we haven’t managed to initiate a debate on any of the many elephants in our room. Yes, our news channels do everything they can to whip us into a frenzy every 45 minutes or so, but do they reach people the way Doordarshan does?

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Whether or not Aamir Khan’s show manages to change lives is, ultimately, a matter of conjecture. What it does make rather obvious is that TV viewers in India deserve more than just soap operas about child brides and murderous in-laws.u00a0