The typical idea of a serial nowadays is to make women relate to the story of the serial and metti oli is one classic example of how you can survive for years together by just showing what you and I would have done some two weeks back and neighbour would have done two months back. what..? well, attend functions, fight at home, cry, sleep, eat and that?s all that is there.
Now Metti Oli begins with a poorly composed tune for which ten women dance to with the most pathetic looking on the lead with so many close ups that urges you to close your eyes and sit through the song even if you are inclined towards watching the serial which is only as bad as the song is. the song sings praises of metti (because the serial was named so the lyric writer invented new credentials for something as trivial as metti?). The most novel of all the praises sung is when he claims that metti is so very important because it comes with a woman all along hand in hand?sorry toe in toe?.why..because metti is generally silver..and hence are nt pledged generally.
So even if all the jewelry gets pledged metti comes along?but of course..metti is what is required for a woman to lead a happy life?is it not?..?? So you thought that this was an ad campaign for a silver jewelry store?no?The customary ornaments that a married women is forced to adorn as a rightful reminder of the hell she has pushed herself into are really capitalized in these serials.
They have almost exhausted all the symbols of matrimony in a woman. We start from the forehead (kungumam) and we have not even left the toe ring alone. (metti oli). Come on now..be fair! you cant expect the director to hire a too very creative guy to give it a fancy name. So they take the easy way out. Say, kungumam, metti oli, thali, valai osai. Or whatever it is they see women wearing.
Don?t be too surprised if sun tv starts off another prime time serial, when annamalai sees its end and name it rubber band, or rakodi (to give it the native effect). That?s something they have never touched upon. And yes ottiyanam also. But they would rather spare ottiyanam cos that would require to star women who have waists thin enough to wear a ottiyanam on it?and we don?t have any such.
Metti oli (don?t ask me what connection the name has to the serial?if there was any I don?t know!) is about 5 women from a middle class family. (inspired by little women?! Noooo! Please!). most of them (I don?t really know if I would be accurate if I say all..) have suffered a broken affair before they succumb to the conceived-to-be- compulsory institution of marriage. And they are certainly those husband-inlaws-abiding wives, all of them and live a life as drab as yours and mine. Then why have a serial about that?? To burn half an hour! The fact that even men watch the serial doesn?t butteress this one bit. This was one place where I thought men still had better sense prevailing. Now I lost all impression about manhood after learning even they got caught under the spell of this inconceivably stupid idea of this mega serial.
A typical episode of metti oli would have a scene of a mother in law bitching, a husband cribbing and a good Samaritan fool of a father shuttling between his daughter?s houses only to get insulted. The one woman you cant stand a bit is Saro. Her husband thrashes her up at even slightest provocation and she tags behind him with a baby tucked to her hip and keeps crying for her father( that all daughters do?). Her mother in law is one typical character. A personification of all the imaginary evil mothers in law of all the women in India. But a serial could certainly show more creative ways of a dealing with such people riding on its advantages of being a fictional work. No. it still remains the irritatingly realistic drab one and every time you see this saro you don?t feel one bit sympathetic.
Of the four daughters who are all married to varied form of idiots, two of them are good (supposedly) and two are bad. And sometime later the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. Then again the bad turns good?so on and so forth. I went round and round to figure out who is good and who is bad and finally after a lot of deliberation came to the conclusion that they are all stupid. What is wrong with these serials is that they dwell on these basic idea that you are either smart and evil or you are dumb and nice.
You cant be smart and nice. That wont work. Like the father of these daughters. He runs around funding his son-in-law?s business with neither his daughter nor himself having the guts to ask him to take care of his own business. That would have saved a lot of efforts, fight and humiliation. Nope. Nor would he bother to tell his other son-in-law to pay for his own sister. A good father in law should not only give dowry for his daughter and meet from time to time their financial requirements but also cough up for his daughter?s sis-in-law?s dowry and fund requirements too. This is how he sets the righteous example to his viewers to follow. This is how you frame a idealistic character which gives out such filthy good for nothing messages to the society.
This serial with basic flaws in the story and the messages it sends out becomes a revered serial only for its realism?the old houses, the naturally dirty sofas, walls that haven?t been whitewashed since independence. Worth commenting is saro?s house?..you see?.the owner of the house had reservations of renting the whole house..so he rented the back portion of the house alone and also barred their entry through the front door.
So saro?s house typically looks like this. You enter you find a bathroom and a toilet to your left?then your kitchen..then your hall and so on??now that?s how any house would be when you come from the back door. Amazing piece of concealed comedy the subtlety of which makes it unnoticeable.
And like people say its not even that the actions of each character is justified. A ingratuitous mother-in-law fnding whose disposition changes every minute, an ever suspecting husbands who would be better if he got lost and who is sustained for no reason whatsoever are all not nautral and are custom made characters to create sympathy for the victimized characters who fall prey to their venom filled tongue and scrupulous suspicion. And in the end its not those victimized characters alone who fall prey?its also the viewers who get entangled in this false realism created and sympathy created for characters who could do with some brains than loads of sympathies of the viewers.
High time the serial wraps up?it?s the drabbest?!