Monday, August 9, 2010

Random Observations of an idle man lost in the labyrinth of Saas-Bahu Serials


Vacations are no doubt every man’s desire, but a really long holiday can become a pain, especially when you have nothing to do. Few would realize my pain, sitting in front of the Television sets aptly named idiot box, from 10-6 and watching the same news again and again and again. I cede the control of the idiot box to my mom in the evenings, who watches these hopeless soaps of the ‘Ekta Kapoor’ fame. With literally nothing to do, I too have to sit through the ordeal, during which I made some of the most bizarre observations:


1.       Every soap has so many unwanted twists that it’s impossible to figure out what the original story line was. (Instead of twist in a story, the story is entire story seems twisted).

2.       Without fail there is a character in every serial, mostly likely female, who is incarnation of Sati Savitri. She will be presented throughout as an epitome of Bhartiye naari. She will bear all kinds of domestic violence and cruelties quietly for months and even years until suddenly she becomes the embodiment of Goddess Durga.

3.       What’s the point in having a resolute hero, if there is no villain? So, each soap inadvertently has to have a devil, generally male but lately fair sex can also be seen, whose only job seems to me is to plot against the lead character. These plots, read shadyantras, are so overtly complex that sometimes I feel why can’t our intelligence agencies use their services for unraveling the conspiracies?

4.       Irrespective of the social standings in the serial, every female character is loaded with tones of jewelry all times, even when they are to sleep, an omnipresent,  large sized mangal sutra hanging down their necks like a noose, an overdose of sindoor in maang and lastly high heeled footwear. I actually wonder how people shown, in the soap, living in mud houses afford such expensive jewelry and even absurd is the idea of wearing them 24x7. Frankly, I am confused that how many females wear high heeled shoes instead of casual slippers in their homes?
5.    
            The males, in these soaps, are even more overtly dressed. Lately the trend has been extensively embroidered long kurtas. Phew! I tried the same, but sincerely I would never give up the comfort of Tees and shorts, for such things.
6.      
      Another amazing fact of these soaps is they rarely conclude in less than 3-4 years. Most of them meet the fate of being booted out when their TRP’s hit the rock bottom. I wish I would ever watch a serial end gracefully. 

4 comments:

Smart Primate said...

Agreed.
I have nothing else to say.
(I just commented because you asked me to. )

True_intrepid said...

Its true that these serials don't represent the true picture of our society but the question is why do we watch them so interestingly? Many reasons can be cited. First one is acting.Undoubtedly the acting of those Bhartiya naaris' as well as those shadyantrakaris' are awesome.its quite barnstorming to watch their eyes movements and facial expressions, dress up sense is also compelling.Its obvious that they are not a representation of the hoi polloi. So, enjoy those serials from a different perspective...wish you all d best.
When you will be forced to watch those soaps daily at home then certainly you will find out some goodies in them too like i found. :P :D

Anonymous said...

Sad that your observations are very old and nothing new to add!
(copy-paste of smart primate:(I just commented because you asked me to.)) :-p

Wierdo said...

@SP & Anonymous: thanks for obliging me :)

@true intrepid: nice suggestion, will defintely try to explore these aspects :)