Saas, Bahu aur Saazish

Sometime ago, I had done a post about TV serials, namely Balika Vadhu which airs on Colors. I am back on that topic after seeing something which made me feel that I should pick up my television set and throw it at the wall in exasperation.

Since long, his thought has been simmering in my head and my first instance on this topic began with a crusade with Anil. We managed to piss off a friend of ours by saying ‘some’ things about a TV serial character. Learning from this wrong gone joke, we continued in our private talks and stopped saying such stuff and laughing on the public domain.

From there I would begin, and I say that there are some characters in serials that influence people to a very large extent. I have seen people cry when the character faces a loss of love or gets hurt, and to not eat when the character doesn’t. Madness.

“How is this a good thing to do and apply in real life?”

That question, when asked to these character lovers, makes me a bad omen, or say a demon of sorts who doesn’t understand love at all. WOW!

Dropping it there, I would move on to the other soap operas which interest the older segment of women and some men as well. Balika Vadhu. A serial based on women. Well, it really does, as we talked in a recent meet, try to influence women for good and also works to empower them. The topics I have seen from the corner of my eyes have been good, but their presentation has been extremely grotesque and unrealistic.

Can you imagine a single person not accepted by her love, due to which she tries to commit suicide, and a couple of months later is raped. That is so realistic. -_-

(Personal thought: Zindagi hai ya dukh ka taalaab!)

My friend Krishna had a say on this as well, and his dialogue made me chuckle. The serial he mentions is another of the ‘classics’ on Colors, and I have had to censor his comment as well.

“Sasural Simar Ka, pagalpan duniya bhar ka.”

Hahah!!

This topic I’m writing on, is quite famous on the social forum as well, and as my friend, and fellow blogger Pankti Mehta told me, serials the Mahabharata and Shiva change the whole mythology of the things we have heard from our childhood. The Shiva serial changed the whole meaning behind Mahashivratri and I thank Pankti for telling me the right tale behind this auspicious day.

Serials like Jodhaa Akbar and Maharana Pratap change the historical tales and this distorts the real story. There is no particular reason behind this except the creation of drama to attract audiences and to increase the TRPs.

So, did you learn anything from this post? No, you didn’t. So let’s begin the learning part, and I will teach you how to make a classic soap opera. (Some of it matches another of my older posts which had a similar thing.)

If you have in mind something real, and new, then I feel sorry to inform you that your serial has failed.

You will need to base your show on women and the problems they think they face in the world, namely rape, kidnapping and saas ke taane. A mother-in-law, who is evil and vamp-ish, is also mandatory.

The man of the serial should be weak and must spend almost all of his time at the office. His say in house matters is next to nil, and whatever problems his wife faces must go unnoticed if his mother tells him to.

The script must jump periodically, and the oldest woman of the house, usually the hero’s grandmother, must keep living on and on even if her age in fiction is well past a century.

The tears and the wails and shouts must not stop at any point of time.

This much is all you shall require to have a soap opera which earns a high TRP. The script doesn’t matter at all, so don’t waste your time blogging and reading this post. Just go and get your serial made!

PS: I still write, and if you ever need a writer for your serial, then you know where to reach me. ;) :P