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| Indian TV's doormat daughters |
No one really knows what kind of 'research', if any, goes into the creation of the top soap operas. But it does seem that viewers get high on stories about desperate, docile daughters and daughters-in-law, writes Vimla Patil |
| If Indian television soaps are any evidence to go by, India's daughters and daughters-in-law ' from the rural poor to the well-educated urban rich ' are spineless doormats who cannot speak up to save their lives. In India, prime time television viewing begins traditionally by 8 pm when most working people have returned home and home-makers are settled after their daily routine of housekeeping and managing the children. The shows that are telecast during these hours ' 8 pm to 11 pm ' are therefore considered to be the most successful with the highest TRPS. So let's see what is on the menu. Show some spunk, girls According to media pundits, Balika Vadhu is the flavour of the season right now. In this narrative, all the women ' heroine Anandi, her mother Bhago, mother-in-law Sumitra, aunt Gehna and sis-in-law Sugna ' are going through some kind of torture or the other. All face relentless humiliation, insults and loss of self-esteem at the hands of the ogre matriarch, Masaab. Except Gehna ' who shows some spunk but is 'defeated' by her motherhood ' all the women are helpless in the face of disgusting abuse from the men in their family and the vicious grandmothers. The other show which attracts a huge number of eyeballs is Bidaai in which Sadhana, the beautiful bride, suffers every variety of insult. Currently, she has been thrown out of her house and is living in her uncle's home where she is hated and abused. It is likely that she will happily return to her sasural when her tormentors deign to give her a clean chit. Take the case of Akshara, a university educated beauty from a wealthy Marwari family in Udaipur. In the popular soap Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, she is thrown out of her home by her 'loving' but spineless husband Naitik. She too, anxiously waits to crawl back to her sasural. The heroine of Lado, Sia, is humiliated beyond endurance by her in-laws, who use her as a servant. Sia is a doctor's daughter and well-educated, but she accepts this humiliation, agreeing to slave in the kitchen and work as nurse maid to the family's arrogant men. To add to this parade of doormats, there's the unfortunate Amoli of Bairi Piya, who is relentlessly hounded by a horny zamindar. There is no escape for her, not even the protection of her husband, who is willing to 'donate' his wife to his master, the zamindar. Where are the real women? The question here is: Are modern Indian women truly like this? Does TV honestly portray the Indian woman of today? Are they total wimps who can be pushed around, kicked out of their homes, deprived of their freedom and respect, raped, molested, plotted against and insulted every step of the way? "Not at all," says Niyati Shah, an IT executive in Bangalore, "I would never accept such behaviour from anyone. Recently, I rejected many marriage proposals because the boys wanted me to move to the US or to the Gulf. I have a fabulous job here and don't wish to give it up and relocate." Many young women like Niyati are clear about where they want to live and work, how they too must look after their parents and how they must have personal rights. "I would never go back to a family that has thrown me out after insulting me. Women ought not to feel so helpless. These soaps on national television, night after night, are misleading and even damaging," says Niyati. 'Spare us the drama' "I would not want my daughter or daughter-in-law to accept this kind of treatment," says Rohini Adhikari, an income tax officer, "I wonder if TV serial makers look at the women outside their very small world." Today, women are counted among the most powerful people in the country. Some Indian women even feature in the list of the Forbes most powerful 100 women of the world. Sonia Gandhi, Indra Nooyi, Chanda Kochchar and other women have made it to the world's power list. Millions of women make excellent money and pursue challenging careers. So, to show women as doormats is unrealistic. The winds of change are blowing across India. "I would want TV to show the changing picture of Indian women too. Instead of showing over-dressed women being kicked around in their homes and living in fear of their own families all the time, I would want to see brave women who are building the new India as an inspiration to all women," says Rohini Adhikari. Why are these soaps popular then? "There is a dearth of good television programming," says Swapna Nair, a script writer. True, television in India blindly follows trends. Sometime ago, it was the saas-bahu soaps about Gujarati women living in huge joint families. These lost out because they just went on and on, introducing bizarre track like mothers-in-law being sent to prison by scheming daughters-in-law and so on. At one time Ekta Kapoor had 19 such serials running on several channels with great success! Then, viewers suffered from TV exhaustion. The soaps lost steam, one by one. Other production houses grabbed the opportunity and brought the flavour of Rajasthan to the small screen. All women wear Rajasthan-style costumes, all men wear the pagrees and kurtas from this beautiful state. Even the dialects are from Rajasthan. This is a new fad and viewers are finding something new in the serials. Some of them like Balika Vadhu claim to have a message. But nothing can justify the constant humiliation of the daughters and daughters-in-law. |
Article from Deccan Herald
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