The day starts with surya namaskar, innumerable rituals while worshiping to god, sending kids to school, then husbands to offices & getting down to the much awaited bitching sessions. And through all this, they are dressed up so amazingly that one might start thinking “Are they super women?” Well..you guessed it right. They are the much talked about adarsh bahus of the “so called” fanciful, morphed and the corrupt world created by Ms. Ekta Kapoor & her clones.
In today's world, when we are trying to get over our unreasonable customs & traditions and helping women rise above them, these so called TV soaps force us to look back and start thinking about them again? In a country where widow remarriage has been propogated since time immemorial, why is it depicted in the tv soaps that a widow should not give blessings to a newly bride because it brings bad luck? Why is it shown that if a woman cannot bear a child then she is thrown out of the house and the mother forces her son to remarry for a child and in many cases for a son? Why is it shown that if a girl from a middle class family is married in a rich family(which always remains the central theme for ekta kapoor), she has to face the brunt of humiliation for a long time till the time she can succumb to the whims & fancies of her mother in law and sister in laws who would be potrayed no less than a vampire loaded with jewellery with “bitching” as their only aim in life?
Why are the TV soaps portraying women in two extremes? Either as “tulsi” who is the embodiment of patience, compassion & affection and who would not utter a word even if her children throw her out of the family every other time? Or like “kamolika” who enters the family with the main aim of breaking the family? Are they the only two roles a woman can do? Have women become so aimless today? Women are worshiped for their ability to nurture and not for playing games with their families and sometimes their own children. I dont understand why Ms. Kapoor wants us to go hundred years back when we are trying to move forward? Why does she come up with serials like “kahaani ghar ghar ki” or “Kasauti Zindagi kay” and so on which go on proving the fact that relationships dont mater in a family? Everyone in the family enjoys an extra marital affair. There are no legitimate children and women normally end up getting married in same families maybe to different brothers. Why are serials named “Betiyaan...paraya dhan” reminding everyone that daughters are burdens? That always remains the central concept in these serials.
I wish to make an appeal with my folded hands to Ms. Ekta Kapoor and all those people who come with such derogatory concepts for a tv soap. The need of the hour is to move forward and not to go on reminding the public of all the social evils that we have left behind. Why are you delineating the concept of a house wife and limiting her role to gossiping, back biting, loaded with jewellery and selfishness? Today the middle class constitutes almost half of the population and it is this middle class that forms the educational intelligentsia of society. Then why are you portraying the girls brought up in middle class families as those who are unaware of the world outside them? Why are you emphasizing on the materialistic aspect of life so much that we start to forget our academic and family aspect of life which holds much more importance?
As an individual each one of us has to make an effort to bring about at least a small change in society in the best way we can. And by being a woman, that effort can be made even more strongly. So heres an appeal to Ms. Ekta Kapoor & her “clones” that please dont stop with your tv soaps, they are an entertainment to lakhs of people. But since it is an entertainment for so many people, prove yourself to be responsible by potraying what is beneficial for the society. And not for yourself & your never ending pockets!!!!
2 comments:
awesome write up Spriha...thoroughly enjoyed reading it...very true..and quite humorous as well.....
Just adding to it...the Pacifics and the Altantics that flow from the eyes of these ladies into our TV rooms is worth mentioning as well :P
But still, I guess something positive can be found in these serials as well....sometimes the story line (only sometimes that is)...takes the shape of a suspense thriller....which is worth watching....guess that explains the entertainment part of your blog....
Good work young lady....do one thing...find out Ms. Ekta Kapoor's email address...and send it out to her ;-)
Hi Spriha,
You got to understand how the shows work. Do you really think Ekta Kapoor shares charachter traits with the women shown in her shows? No way! They why does she do it? She is just feeding to what people want. People don't want to see good things. Why do you think DD doesn't work anymore? Most people lead pretty moderate, boring lives where nothing much really happens. The reason they like movies and shows is the fact that for short periods of time, they can live the life of charachters they see on screen. I have a pet theory that though self-pity and pathos can be a bad thing, it is really addictive stuff. I think it makes women feel better about themselves when they see that other women have so much more worser fates relatively. May be thats the reason why Ekta kapoor uses those scenes on her shows to take pathos to ever higher levels. Women wallow in self pity.
I suggest that you read a short story called "fire and the heart of man" by John Collings Squire. (Try in google book search) you will understand this curious phenomenon a little better.
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