The lead character in Beintehaan, one of Colors' more popular serials, is battling a mother-in-law who is determined to oust her from the household. The young bride, this being a Muslim household, is from the family's less well-off relatives in Bhopal. Then there is an advertisement of Arise inverters running these days where a woman tells her newly-wed daughter-in-law: "Putravati ho." In Baani, another of Colors' popular shows, a woman, after being serially harassed by her husband and presumed dead, has returned in a new avatar to extract revenge.
In short, Indian television sucks, and not in a good way. I would love to decry the nonsense that is Khatron ke Khiladi (so obviously staged it's not funny) or the drag-equals-comedy act of Comedy Nights with Kapil. But the truth is they are not a blip on the sustained misogyny that is relayed into the nation's drawing rooms via soaps.
At a time when Bollywood is making halting steps towards reform, Indian TV is stuck in a time warp. Look at Highway, for instance. A bold, much-needed film, it not only broaches the subject but plunges the viewer neck-deep into the ravages of sexual abuse. Or look at Queen, a delightful film about a girl from Delhi's Rajouri Garden who awakens to freedom during a trip abroad. Or even the candyfloss Hasee Toh Phasee, which gives us our first crackhead of a heroine. Bollywood is changing right before our eyes. But television? One feels as though Indian TV is regressing rather than moving forward, considering the popularity, once, of shows like Udaan.
Maybe it has to do with the dynamics of the TV industry, whose revenues thrive on the tastes of housewives - which, in turn, suggests a rather disturbing tale. Why are women taking hook, line and sinker to such shows? Sure, there was the Ekta Kapoor phase, the success of which set a new benchmark in regressive politics. But look around you - this is a country that saw a deep churning in the wake of the December 16 gang rape in New Delhi and heady protests after the Supreme Court ruling recriminalising homosexuality. How can television be so out of touch?
But wait, let's not forget the Indian fascination for gold, which all the TV starlets seem to be decked in. There is the love for the big, fat wedding - a recurring theme. There is presumably a love for big bungalows built in the Art Deco style. And there is definitely the hush-hush, wink-wink expectation of dowry and a male child and an earning bahu and... So is it really that Indian TV is out of touch, or is it we, the thinking classes - for want of a better word - who are?
But we liberalised 20 years ago, you'd say, and now that Narendra Modi strides colossus-like on the horizon, surely some of that economic glitter has fallen on our values too? Aren't we all capitalists now, singing hosanna to shining malls and paved roads, but also better-educated, well-earning, ergo, more evolved for all that?
We can hope, certainly those of us who write for and read and discuss issues in the English media. We celebrate the oncoming of a golden age of emancipation. We see it all around us, in the tiny minority of women we live, work and party with. We try and capture this evolving zeitgeist in columns such as this. But what about my friend, my very educated friend, whose educated mother-in-law is willing to fund her in vitro fertilisation treatment only if "you give me a son"? Or the cousin who changed her surname after marriage because her "new family" liked it that way? Or another friend whose mother-in-law expects her to make a big bowl of salad for her husband when he returns from work because "he has grown up like that"? You know, as though she hasn't?
The truth is that women have done all this, and suffered all this, in this country. And these notions of what is right and proper - and feminine - are so entrenched that nothing short of a revolution is going to help matters. The question is: who will bring about such a revolution? Not the media for sure. If the media is to be our guide, we can rest assured in the chummy incestuousness of the English-speaking crowd and hope for pigs to fly. (Please do not mark me out as an elitist. All the above-mentioned evil mother-in-laws are English-speaking. So when I say education and Modi-love and a smack of liberal values mean zilch, I speak from experience.)
This is India, like it or not. Why blame TV when it only captures what it sees?
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
