Tele-Serial Talk

Shilpa Garg | June 4, 2010 | Uncategorized | 22

Few days ago, I was surfing the channels on TV. One after the other, I saw the tele-serials being telecast on various channels. And I got interested. So watched them for 2-3 days again. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t watch a single Indian tele-serial. And I was not interested in their story line or in the actors wearing gaudy, designer party dresses and accessories at home in their kitchen!! I had pure academic interest in these tele-serials. So, some moments of watching them and I got lots of insights.

First, have a look at the serials….

And you get to know that…

• All the prime time tele-serials are women centric.
• The story line revolves around marriage and its various rituals, twisted relationships, ‘out-dated, conservative’ domestic issues… In Sajan Ghar Jana Hai, a man has 2 wives and one is asking the other to give her only one ‘sukh’ and that ‘sukh’ is not to bear any child!! And then the camera shows the reactions of the 2 women for eternity in slow motion!
• You have women slapping each other or getting slapped by husbands, women plotting against each other. Yesterday, in one  serial, the husband throws his wife out of the house and rest of the family is silently observing the whole drama.
• The ‘Goodest good” woman is attacked/harassed/embarrassed, not once, not twice but ALL the time by the “Evilest evil” women who are always wearing big bindis with design patterns covering the entire forehead and ‘showering’ wicked smiles all the time. And none in the family has the brains to understand their evil tactics despite umpteen episodes.
• The dialogues are pathetic and so very clichéd. “Tum kya kar sakti ho. Tum ek aurat ho. Tumhari jagah ab pati keghar hi hai” God!! While, its only the women who are dong everything in these serials. Men are just present to complete the picture (wearing multi-colored designer kurtas and sherwanis) and to assist women in their plotting and conspiracies.
• Everybody stays in modern designer homes but women will always have ‘Pallu’ on their head ALL the time. In Jamunia, they showed a modular kitchen but the food is cooked on a ‘chulha’ and bags of grains kept in the centre of the kitchen and fruits and vegetables kept in multiple ‘tokris’ on the kitchen slab.

So, the questions which emerge are…

• Why are there sooo many old fashioned, regressive tele-serials going on for soooo many years now on our television?
• When we have moved forward in almost all spheres of life, why can’t we look beyond the saas-bahus in tele-serials?
• What is shown in the tele-serials, does that represent our society and our world?? Or is the real world of the tele-serial makers different from our real world??
• When they started these sagas on TV, the mass hysteria was understandable. But even now, after so many years, with the same, typical, orthodox stories (and mostly conveying wrong messages), the TRPs and viewership is ever increasing. I know many, who time their dinners and outings as per the timings of these shows, still. For how long can the viewers taste the same dish, rather dishes? But the fact is that they are not only tasting them but relishing them too!! Why, I wonder!!
• Why can’t we have some intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting tele-serials with the right quotient of entertainment?

Any answers??

Tags: TV