The perils of mom and pop culture

Geetanjali Krishna talks about human behavior and TV series

As a student of sociology and human behaviour, I have often wondered about the effect that popular culture has on our psyches. Why is it that I watch American crime dramas and British period sagas compulsively, while my neighbour can’t do without her daily fix of family dramas? And how do the shows we watch and the songs we listen to, affect us? These questions occurred to me yet again recently when I ran into Chitra, a domestic worker who recently had her first child. When I asked after the baby, Chitra was every bit the gushing mother. “She’s such