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Indian women breathes with daily TV soaps

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We the people in India are best at misusing its Democracy in the name of Freedom to do any kind of weird things.  As we can see our Indian channels are totally filled up with unrealistic family dramas. Sony TV’s new show ‘Pehredaar Piya Ki’ has been receiving a lot of criticism as they aired romance between a 9-year old little boy and a 19-year old girl and their marriage. After the illogical presentation of child marriage, the makers went creepier by putting a honeymoon sequence in the show. Also there are not so comfortable dialogues in the show like, “He is a kid, and we don’t know when he will be big enough to satisfy you.” Thankfully, some viewers who have some IQ left are protesting against this serial.

Ever since the show was aired, it has been receiving a lot of negative reviews on social media stating the entire plot as bizzare and misleading the concept of child marriage. The show became more crazy when they showed a weird degrade behaviour by the young boy who stalked his better half at a small age. Things went out of limit, when recently; the show is revolving around their honeymoon. Young children in metro cities love to be copy cats, they follow what they see and such awkward things actually attract them because they have out of box ideas. Already the generation is getting spoiled after the advent of many cellphone apps, adult literature and soft porn. They are not only sharp but they can easily mould themselves to what they adapt.

The only other topics or shows we get to see in those channels is few reality shows which some  people watch and some don’t. Even these reality shows are broadcasted at such a time when main serials finish. We have no other option left if we want to watch some fresh content they have only one option that Family Saas-Bahu Drama and they are slowly getting addicted to it hence it is estimated that the graph may grow in numbers of youth watching it. The only thing that can change is different shows should be started and the producers must shift themselves from family drama’s to some new concepts like Anil Kapoor’s #24 that was aired on Colors.

There was one more famous TV serial, whose lead actress recently committed suicide. The serial “Balika Vadhu” was started with the motivation to spread awareness about Child Marriage but later on they ended glorifying the child marriages. The Indian TV show producers always fool the audience because TRP really matters for them. If you see most of the TV serials they are far away from the reality, tell me who wears formal cloths with so much of fashion jewellery and makeup at home , women are wearing heavy jewellery all the time and above all none of them are shown happy. Every woman is given challenges to fulfill or cry in front of God and some miracle to expect, all headless scripts.

Actually, our squeamish censor board is more likely to ban realistic serials/films which portray social issues or challenge stereotypes, such as Deepa Mehta’s Water which dealt with atrocities against widows, or the movie Lipstick Under my Burkha, which depicted women asserting their own sexuality/ambitions. Serials which portray Indian women as sari clad docile homemakers with no sexual desires, and who are servile to their philandering husbands- this suits their ‘sanskari’ agenda perfectly. However, I don’t believe in ‘banning’ anything- all cultural products should be criticized and analyzed, but be accessible to all. One cannot ban such things just because we don’t like, and also see how much serials earn. They are in great demand. It’s just that our people are stuck in the past. And they get their emotions after watching them like we watch Sci-fi or other stuffs (emotion includes all stuffs of human thoughts).

We all know India had some great sitcoms in late 90’s till early 2000’s.  To name a few, shows like ‘Dekh Bhai Dekh’ , ‘Shrimaan Shrimati’, ‘Hum Paanch’,  if you go in past then Hum Log, Katha Sagar were great hits. Such sitcoms showed simplicity which was closer to Indian family and humor which still make us crack up. It’s not that after they got over people lost interest in such comedy serials. Some new shows, like ‘Office Office’ ‘Yes Boss’ ‘Sarabhai vs Sarabhai’ ,’Khichdi’ started making place in their hearts. But one can say they soon lost their TRPs to some daily drama soaps. It’s because of the increasing popularity of shows like ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, ‘Kasauti Zindagi ki’ and ‘Kasam Se’ to name a few, the tele world started shifting their focus to daily dramas of India household, thanks to Ekta Kapoor.

Leaving humour aside and keeping laughing responsibility on standup comedy shows, these days producers started making continuous story telling shows, as opposed to sitcoms, with a mix of tradition and drama to target a particular audience group i.e, housewives, instead of whole family. I mean they actually thought they are relating it to daily problems faced by Indian housewives by exaggerating to such extreme that made younger audience switch off channels. Such over-rated saas-bahu serials are too melodramatic, too impractical, and simply waste of time with mind damaging nonsense. But the sad truth is they are popular, not only in India but also in our neighbouring countries. These serials are generating big revenue and many youngsters from spot boy to actor get empowered. Lot of employment is created by such daily soaps and apart from this we got some cabinet ministers like Smriti Irani.

TRP is everything for the tele-world today. The very reason some thrive, some shut down. Saas bahu oriented show definitely works. Even if most youth avoid watching them, they have plenty of viewers. And they are not going away anytime sooner. Channels like V channel and Bindass may have tried making youth-oriented sitcoms, but they are more intended towards love-triangles and emotional drama. So of course we started watching west sitcoms, and it’s not just because of our infatuation with west, but also they are simple, unique, realistic (till an extent) and some shows are really funny. And we connect with them. Given the fact many people are hooked to these saas-bahu shows.

Well, the more child marriage is disapproved in the country, the more Hindi daily serials are showing it. Yes, one such serial can be a break from the monotony but too much of it is yet another harbinger of monotony. Besides, in most of the serials, people are shown getting married right after their schools or college—now, what do you have to say about that? Earlier, television series were thought of as a source of sheer entertainment. But, don’t you think nowadays they have just come out as mere tear machines more than anything else? No matter which teleseries you start, inevitably always you’ll find some person (and, women it is always for men don’t cry) or the other shedding tears over some issue or the other. And, the best part is, they cry when they’re happy, when they’re sad or even when they are bored and have nothing to do to irritate others. This would be a never ending debate. Let’s see with this demand of ban what more can be changed in this TV industry.

 (Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)

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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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