Jun 24, 2010 10:06 PM
3745 Views
I blame Indian TV serials for the following:
1> Spreading Ignorance
2> Promoting phobias and irrational fears
3> Justifying silly insecurities that may lead to domestic tension
4> Degrading the importance of reasoning and logic in life, and the worst
5> Promoting superstition
The channel Colors uses a Golden bold male voice to announce before their serials, "Hum in serials dwara aurato par ho rahe atyachar ka purjor(exact phonetic as it is used in the hindi text) virodh karte hain"
Really? Did you even once mention in your serials the telephone hotline(103) that a woman can use if she is in danger? Or did you mention even once in your dramatic serials the "Dhara 498a" that a woman can use to get protection from domestic violence for dowry? Is the "purjor virodh" the reason why the "atyachari"s in your serials go along years doing all the atyachars without getting 1 person to try to stop them or a day in prison cell or a single scratch on their body? What's freaking hilarious is that these same Ladies that plot to Kill each other live happily under the same roof(I have more than one example from the most watched serials). And then you talk about "Bhartiya Sanskriti".
I am entirely against Indian soaps and have been for many years, and have been ignoring them. But when I saw the same nonsense today in a serial that I saw about 8 to 10 years ago in an entirely different serial in an entirely different channel, I couldn't take it. They were showing(as usual, somehow all serials revolve around'Shaadi' and have all the insecurities involving a marriage) a girl giving "proofs" that she is the illegitimate child of a "Thakur". And then there was blaming and counter blaming. I am guessing this "twist" will continue for another 10 episodes in the least.
Did they know that it has been almost 30 years that a DNA test holds a valid place in the courts of the real world? If the household has "a business worth crores of rupees", then can't they shell out a few lakh rupees for a DNA test? It will put all doubts to rest. It will take only 5 mins of the serial's time to reach to a conclusion. But Of course that will not be digested by the demographic that watches such serials(the millions of illiterate housewives who don't know what a DNA test is and where it can be used). And also it will not help the cause of stretching the serial for another month, or till the writers come up with a new "twist".
The last time it was a serial that used a footage worth 20+ episodes to establish the identity of a Rapist of a blind woman, by stretching a court case, when they had already known that the Rapist is among the handful of the men from the "same house". Of course the writers didn't know what a DNA test is back then, and they don't even know what it is now.
Did you know how the burnt bodies from the Mangalore Air crash were identified? Yes, DNA testing. Did you know what the Mumbai Police is doing for trying to identify the Psycho Rapist-Killer in Kurla's Nehru Nagar? Yes, DNA testing of the 27 suspects.
These serials are nothing but gossip fodder for the millions of housewives of our country who are illiterate and crave for some spice in their lives. And the bridge between reality and these serials is getting all the more wider by the day. While in real life more women of our country are taking to education, jobs and spend their time at home wearing Salwar Kurtas and Gowns, these serial women continue to have only their kitchen as their employer, spend all the time preparing for a wedding and wear Full blown Saris with Jewellery even when they go to sleep. While in reality a woman tries to understand, if not help, in her husband's professional life, in these serials not even once is the "business" of the husband mentioned. I am still trying to figure what "business" these men do where they spend no time in any kind of office and spend all their time with their women and still somehow make "crores".
This gap was even acknowledged by an emminent lady in the Broadcast department on TV, citing, "we have moved much ahead in reality", "some of these serials make us go back in time" and "we might have to think about censorship".
It is high time that these serials improve. TV channels will definitely not stop churning out this garbage as long as it is bought, but the least they can do is improve their content! Doordarshan was better in that it at least tried to educate its viewers. I hope to see more of Reality shows(not the big boss type) and the likes of rishta.com(on Sony) in future. At least they don't do the 5 things I blamed those soaps for.
Finally, a word to the ladies who are die hard fans of these soaps. If you can justify watching this Bull, then please don't complain if your men watch Porn.