Hallelujah! Rejoice all ye soap opera buffs! Here then is yet another tear jerking family drama that attempts to borrow from ’Indian Culture.’ The idea here is to brainwash us ’bharatiya naris’ into believing that ’rishton ki pooja’ & ’badon ka adar’ is the only way to go for all the aspiring Parvati Bhabis among us. ’’Nothing wrong with that, ’’ you may say. Sure there is no harm in respecting our elders and being good dutiful housewives if that is what we want to be.
But then does that necessarily make women who are not so family oriented the evil ones? Apparently, yes it does! Why else does the serial’s protagonist, Parvati only decide to start working when it’s time to avenge her family’s ruin at the hands of Pallavi? Why is it that Pallavi & Ambika seemingly the only ambitious / working women in the serial, are portrayed as scheming, plotting, bitter and vengeful women?
Sadly this women-centric (?), mind-numbing serial and lots of other serials with similar story lines are doing very well if the TRPs are to be believed. Why is it that middle-class Indian women (and lots of men too!) are lapping these values up as if this is what Indian culture is all about? Answer me that someone puhleeeeease!
Do we really need serials like these to reacquaint us with the Ramayana? (Anyone remember the scene where Parvati & Om leave the ancestral home & parallels are drawn to Ram & Sita’s Vanvas?) What’s wrong with watching the original then? I for one would rather go get myself those volumes of Ramanand Sagar’s ’’Ramayana” on tape than watch the saga of a ’modern’ Indian family going through the same travails.
All I am asking for, as a very middle-class, very Indian woman myself, is to actually be treated with some respect.
How about giving us some more serials like ’Kashmir’ and maybe even something like’Udaan’(the semi-biographical serial on Kiran Bedi’s life). Serials that actually depict India & Indian women, as we are today. Do I hear applause?