Grown Up Soaps

It will be suicidal to write something on daily soaps that also when I am writing after ages. Yes, I have been going through..err.. “writer’s block” (feels very big deal sorts, nevertheless). I started writing on some topics which I would say, were just for the sake of writing; hence I’d Withdrawn those.

So while finishing dinner this thought passed by - The daily soaps running now days. Yes I WATCH them. Not all but some. My favourite is ‘Kya Hua Tera Wada’ and why? because It does not seem from the time of ‘Jai Maa Santoshi’, infact it is trying its best to be as urban as possible. Does not matter if they are failing, but they are trying.

For a change Today’s Daily Soaps do not irk. They offer divorce with the speed Your Mom takes chapatti off the Gas. It has smooches and it has sex. It has an IAS aspirant helping his cook husband to win third class version of Master-chef from a Foreigner who was rejected a background dancer role in bollywood. The kid worked in child-marriage soap now acts like a full grown daughter-in-law; more-over she is now on the verge of becoming surrogate mother of her own sister’s child. Yes, twisted but they are getting technical about it.

They surely do not have good justified reason behind all these urban twists but the reason why it all make some sense to me is; because at-least they are trying to live in 21st century.

Take for example my favourite soap’s storyline - A couple breaks up because of a highly ambitious CEO type flame in husband’s life and now separated ones are getting married second time for good. If this soap is hitting TRP, apparently society is accepting the fact that a 12 year old marriage can break and produce two individuals who at last choose their life again. Though I cannot fully suffice their concepts behind broken marriage, re-marriage and second woman but they are not getting on my nerves for a change. In the hindsight, how they tackle their three kids, will be a tale to watch out for.

On the contrary, there are only a few daily soaps which are near to depict story with reality check. There are still many where ladies are wearing Kilos of jewellery and talking to themselves when they are alone. Men in those serials are handling family’s empire of million dollars just by sitting at home *all the time* with a laptop in living room where most of the time they are actively taking part in kitchen politics and extra marital with brother’s wife or daughter or who so ever. Still one cannot blame them as their screen time is hardly of a second. But then there are leads that must be a good example for rural female audience e.g. that soap on Child – Marriage where main lead is now Sarpanch of her village and marrying Collector of same village. If one takes off her Mang-tika and replaces oversized skirt with a sized one, she can be survived for more than five minutes on screen.

Leaving daily soaps, currently Television offers reality shows where ‘How they choose Judges for shows’ will always be a mystery for people like me. Now how-come people who judge ‘India’s got talent’ can judge it and on what basis. Does it not require superiors of all the fields across country? Glam world quotient is in access and can make people vomit. Personally, I hate shows on kids; especially dancing and singing ones. First and foremost, there are hardly songs in bollywood which are untouched by Love, romance, Heart, Heart-beat, Choli, Lehnga, Kacha, Baniyan etc, over and above these tiny fellows sing them with full emotions. It looks unreal. Their made-up and put-up innocence shatters me somewhere. Competition and money strips many off their charm.

I know I exaggerated a bit. There are soaps which are attentive to kids’ issues too. There is one where all focus is on middle class family’s kids. How teenage daughter falls for a guy and her middle class yet urban parents solves it with sensitivity. Appreciated. But the ladies in this soap wear horrible clothes. (Out of context I know)

I am waiting for the time when soaps grow up to something like desperate housewives or sex and the city where sleeping with multiple partners can be chalked out, if required. The day when a Rachel in India makes a baby with her ex and opts for single motherhood OUT OF CHOICE. The day when an ‘Indian Man’ proposes for a marriage and not his ‘family’ that also when he is ready for it and not because he is crossing 30.

PS – Imagine Indian man proposing in temple on his knees with Var-mala (Garland) in his hands. (After all It is a Daily Soap).
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