Aasman Se Aage

Aasman Se Aage
The Reality behind Reality Shows.
Written by	Sumit Roy, Preeti Mamgain and Vikas Chandra
Directed by	Glen Barretto, Ankush Mohla and Arif Shamsi
Starring	See Below
Country of origin	India
Original language(s)	Hindi
No. of episodes	63
Production
Cinematography	Deepak Malwankar & Sanjay Malwankar
Running time	Approx. 24 minutes
Production company(s)	Sagar Arts & 72 Degree Northe
Release
Original network	Life OK
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original release	23 April – 13 July 2012
External links
Website

Aasman Se Aage (English: Beyond the Sky) is an Indian Hindi language television drama that first aired on Life OK. It premiered on 23 April 2012 and was telecast from Monday to Friday evenings through 13 July 2012.

Each episode was 24 minutes in duration. In April 2012, the first Maha Episode of ASA was aired which was 46 minutes. Two more Maha Episodes were aired in May and June 2012. On 11 June 2012, it was confirmed that Life OK was going to change the program line-up, and on doing this they decided to end Aasman Se Aage due to it getting constant low trp's. The decision lead to protests from many die-hard fans of the show - the channel was criticized for cancelling the show within 2 months of its airing, leading to speculation that the decision may have been politically motivated.

The show tells the story of Meenakshi, a talented but poor slum girl who gets the opportunity of a lifetime to be on a dance reality show on TV called Aasman Se Aage (Beyond The Skies).

ASA was both a drama about dancing as well as a critical examination of reality shows, laying bare behind-the-scene exploitation and manipulations of the medium. It was promoted with the tagline 'the reality behind reality shows'.

The story follows a very talented dancer Meenakshi who hails from a poor slum in Mumbai. Meenakshi gets the chance to take part in a TV Dance Reality Show Aasman Se Aage when the charismatic and unscrupulous producer of the show, DC, sees in her an opportunity get higher TRPs (TV Ratings) by exploiting her poverty.

Initially her mother Malti is opposed to the idea of her daughter going on the show because she is afraid for her daughter. Eventually Malti allows her to go forth and try to win the show after she sees how much it means to Meenakshi. From here the show starts following the journey of Meenakshi and some other participants - Karishma (a cut-throat competitor who is ready to do anything to win), the brothers Angad (who is good-natured and extremely supportive of his brother) and Akshat (who always needs to win at any cost, but suffers terrible performance anxiety), Sameer (a young desperate school kid whose parents want him to become a doctor rather than a dancer).

Meenakshi gets through the auditions and is invited to live in the ASA Academy with all the other participants which is run like the Big Brother house by DC - it is wired with cameras throughout. As soon as Meenakshi enters the academy, DC cleverly leaks a video between him and her which suggests that he has a sexual relationship with her. This makes all the other participants angry and anti-Meenakshi even as DC continues to remain a mentor and angelic figure for the naive Meenakshi. Karishma leads a hazing campaign against Meenakshi where she is mercilessly taunted for being a naukrani (maid's) daughter. DC knows that to get ratings he needs to get Meenakshi to cry - and sure enough all the taunting ensures that she is constantly breaking down, much to DC's glee.

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Wikipedia