By Deepti D.
There is no denying the fact that TV, also known as our darling Idiot Box has become an indispensible part of our lives. Just close your eyes for a minute and think that is there any one day that has gone when your house has not watched TV.. I am sure the answer is NO. Well you might say that you are not a TV Buff, but then your family must be. The day must be starting with your grandparents switching on all sorts of “Bhakti” channels and listening attentively to all the Godmans alive…. Infact the other day I was channel surfing and came across this weird man who claims to know the solutions to all your problems in life. Seated on a bright red sofa… he tells people to have 3 golgappas or to wear socks of different colours and all the problems would go choomantar !!! And apparantely people do follow his instructions… such is the Power of TV
Next in line comes your Dad trying all sorts of Yoga poses just to get that paunch go away in just half an hour and then gorge on samosas and kachoris in the breakfast !!! And oh the summer vacations have started … so its endless hours of Doreamon and Ninja Hattori cartoons…. My personal experience …!!
And then comes the majority of people who watch TV.. our darling housewives… oops no homemakers to be precise… and their INDIAN TV SERIALS or soap operas as they prefer to call it. Well there is no denying that these serials are the lifelines of Indian TV…. But thinking of today’s serials…are we seeing the right thing… are they imparting what is to be rightfully imparted… and that is knowledge and entertainment?
Remember those days of “Hum Log” and “Buniyaad”.. the first soap operas of Indian Television. They taught us values of joint family.. And then came comedies like “Dekh Bhai Dekh”, “Hum Paanch” which showed us how to laugh. But all these were sitcoms which aimed at the middle class society and ended after say 104 episodes. Then we started a 1000 episode series… which again was not boring…”Shanti”, “Ek Mahal ho Sapno ka”… fun to watch as well as engrossing enough.
Well as soon as we were coping up with the influx of 1000 episode serials.. enter the era of ‘K’ serials .. “Kyunki saas bhi kabhi Bhau thi”, “Kahani Ghar ghar ki” and the never ending plot…. And here is where our darling TV went down the drains… no denying that these serials made everyone get hooked on to them…dinner used to be served after the serials, people taking leaves to watch the next crucial episode..and yes they were providing entertainment… but at the same point intentially or unintentially they were promoting weird facts or maybe superstitions… I mean I still cant believe how the hero could come alive one day out of the blue at a certain moment when the heroine was about to get remarried … or for that matter how can a person have 3 lookalikes all living at the same area and never meeting each other??
If this was not enough … well .. well… then welcome to the new dimension of Indian TV Serials… The “Bhoot, Naagin Aspect’ … India as such is very famous for being a land where all sorts of superstitions exists … and instead of our serials curbing that… I guess they are promoting it these days. Let me give you some examples. “Sasural Simar ka”.. the serial started with main female protagonist journey into her inlaws house and how she deals with it. All was well till the makers were left with no story to explore.. so what did they do… enter “Daayans, Chudails” and what not.. to the extent that Ms Simar even became the queen of some “Pataal Lok”…I mean excuse me… in this day and age where is this “Pataal Lok” located…well if this is making you dizzy.. wait and see what I have next in store for you… once this “Queen Pataal lok” track finished.. the makers could not stop the serial as it was top on TRP charts.. they made Ms Simar a … hold your breath… a FLY .. or MAKKHI !!! And that was the precise moment I switched off my TV.
Coming to ‘Naagins’… our queen of soap opera specializes in them… she actually has a serial named “Naagin” which believe it not is topping all the serials on all channels… why? Why? Infact that serials not only has so called the “ichchdhari Nags and Naagins” but all sorts of Navelas… where are the makers taking us… to stone age times…? Well the serial had become such a craze that many serials have put in a special track of ghosts and naagins and what not. Last heard that Ms Kapoor was coming up with two new serials.. one with the name ‘Kavach’ where a dead disillusioned lover goes inside the body of her lover’s wife and tries to woo him.. and the second is an unnamed serial where the heroine is romancing with a ghost…where have all the good looking guys gone from Planet Earth? We earlier had a great number of horror shows and they proved their point of fearing and trembling us but they belonged to that genre only.. the horror show genre… but including these ghost tracks in serials is highly disgusting.. to the point of being hilarious
The great thing about great stories is that they end. Great movies, great books end and give us a finale. But our Indian TV serials are not designed to end. It is designed to continue for ages and ages…. Where has that world of TV gone when it fun to watch a Hindi Movie on a Sunday or Tom and Jerry on weekends… what are we imparting to our kids.. that believe in these superstitions … Is this the right thing? Point to think… a reality check is needed maybe !!! or is it time to say RIP TELEVISION !
