As the distraught widow confronts the village villain – her lips trembling, eyes wide with fear – the camera zooms in to catch every detail.

The villain laughs maniacally, while his oily sidekick leers, watched by the kung-fu-kicking Muslim woman who rescued the widow from kidnap, rape – or death. “Cut!” shouts the director.

At first glance this could be any one of the soap operas that have taken India by storm in the past decade. This however, is a soap with a difference: Kyunki . . . Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai (Because . . . That’s What Life Is) aims not just to entertain but to save lives.

Woven into the script are messages designed by UN experts to teach rural Indians about social issues such as basic sanitation, immunisation, HIV/Aids and breast-feeding.

“This episode is about sanitation and hygiene,” explains Kapil Motwani, the show’s executive producer. “Our message is the importance of having lavatories in villages so that women don’t have to defecate in the fields after dark.”

Unglamorous as it may sound, Kyunki, which started in April, is perhaps the most creative attempt yet to combat India’s biggest killers. The UN estimates that 2.1 million Indian children die before reaching the age of 5 every year – mostly from preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, malaria, measles and pneumonia. Every day, 1,000 Indian children die because of diarrhoea alone.

The idea for the soap came to Naysan Sahba when he was working on a polio vaccination programme for the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest states.

Although a child needs just three doses of polio vaccine, Mr Sahba said that his staff had to visit each family up to ten times because of other basic health problems. “Clearly the solution wasn’t throwing a pamphlet at a family that couldn’t read,” he said.

He also noticed that, however poor the villagers, their lives came to a standstill every evening when the women gathered to watch their favourite soap. Market research showed that 91.2 million Indian households, or between 300 and 400 million people, now have access to televisions – more than to radios. The challenge was to make something appealing to a modern audience that, even in villages, is bombarded with glitzy serials, Bollywood films and sports competitions. “It was clear that we’d have to think big,” Mr Sahba said. First, he negotiated a budget of $1.8 million (£926,355) for 130 episodes of the new soap – a fraction of Unicef’s annual budget of $102.6 million for India.

Among fans of the show is Mridula Sharma, 38, of Shir village in the state of Maharashtra. “I can identify with it when they talk about a rural health centre and stuff,” she said. Her only complaint was that it was not realistic enough – health workers in her village were not nearly so well dressed. “The reality is a bit different,” she said. “But I know the producers have to add some glamour.”

Edutaining

— In 1950 the BBC and Ministry for Agriculture created The Archers, hoping to help farmers

— Dom 7, Podyezd 4 (House 7, Entrance 4) launched in Russia in 1993, It tried to ease the transition to life after the USSR. Tony Blair had a cameo role Sources: BBC, Times Archive

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