TV serials! The drama, the conniving women with their hair raising concocting schemes, the background music, the camera angles, the tragedy, the loudness of it all and the simple fact that people love watching it, are mesmerised by the whole idea intrigues me. Women are dressed to hilt, they are loaded with Bhimji Zaveri Wala Jewellery, wearing designer sarees, men never work, and homes are all mansions where everything is in a super order. Most of the stories involve huge joint families living together, in a matriachal type of setup. The mother or the mother in law has her own set of rules that have to be followed. Few daughter in laws are thrown in the plot, some really good, some terrible, would actually put Sashi Kala from old times to shame, and the stories involve around extreme emotions such as greed, power, egoes at one end of spectrum to extreme sacrifice, blind trust, and intense gullibility at the other end.

In human relationships these dramas emphasis the fact that there is politics everywhere. Politics in your work place in understandable, but these dramas show that in families too it is all about politics. What did one say, how did one talk, what was the situation, whose principles were broken, what is the punishment, who will be punished, who will be the perpetrator, all schemed nicely in 100 episodes. The producers, actors, directors, sponsors are all happy people, they are in business, and it is their rozi roti.

So far so good.

The issue is that how many of us have ever questioned about the impact these conspired, scheming stories have on us and on our children. For adults it is a solid "time pass'. I have heard people discuss about the episodes on phone, at parties with a passionate fervour. For children it is something that they watch because their parents watch. And one finds them getting hooked to the stories as well. They learn how one can scheme, they learn to mistrust.