The Mind Of The Married Man sounds like a very interesting title for a comedy show; who wouldn’t like to know what actually goes on in the mind of men, especially the married ones? To those who are curious can suffer this show every Monday at 11.00 pm on Zee English. Here is an account of what I suffered & learnt about the ’interesting’ thoughts of the shadishuda aadmi !
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pehle dekhta hoon, phir sunta hoon & then sochta hoon!
Two friends are discussing about wives & pornography; One of the guy’s wife has found porn on his computer, he is our hero Micky Barnes who is now seeking advice from his friend Doug on how to face his wife. Doug is curious to know : What kind of porn? [What kind? how many kinds are there? don’t we all net savvy people already know? Now me curious to see what smart/different reply Doug gets?]
However, before Micky can answer that a third friend joins them, who isn’t interested in what kind porn Mickey was looking at & all he has to say is ’’You are F**kd’’. This friend is Jake [who uses so much of F’s in his dialogues that one is tempted to forget his name Jake & simply refer to him as the FKD guy!] Jake also has an interesting theory for Micky’s penchant for porn; coz he doesn’t have the guts to go after the real thing. Then he also goes ahead with his stupid advises.... you’ve a hard disk problem so you should visit a ’computer consultant’ & the rest.......am gonna skip all that here!
Even though I didn’t like the first episode, I watched another part of this show coz I was curious to know more about the other Barnes: Mrs. Donna, we do meet her but she isn’t as bad as Micky makes her out to be. She is also a newspaper reporter but more career oriented [read: doesn’t eye her male colleagues] so Micky portrays her as a tough-talking career gal, what he conveniently fails to impress on is the fact that besides working Donna is also loving & caring mother to their son. Inspite of work & family duties, Donna wants another child but Micky who is still seems to be his fantasying phase of life is hardly bothered with trying to meet his wife’s wishes, instead he blames her that she is reacting to that pornography incident. He then proceeds to berate her for never wanting to talk about sex & also for not being receptive to his suggestions in the bedroom. What follows is much much nonsensical to be mentioned in the review but let me tell you that Donna is unlike our ’’Tulsi’’ ’’Kksum’’ type wives, she is surely not one to take things lying down [in every sense] & doesn’t think twice before giving Micky good replies for his stupidities. Now you can imagine the peace n harmony that exists in the Barnes household.
After the porn incident Micky, who obviously has a serious stray thoughts problem, blunders once again when he appoints a stunningly sexy assistant Missy, naturally now Micky cannot help fantasizing about her. As he lies beside his wife, he suddenly dreams that Missy is sitting at the foot of his bed & these fantasies continue even in broad daylight at office! To get over his ’guilt’ he fires Missy that even though she is capable she is also simply too distracted around him. When he shares his problem with Jake he is advised to go to bed with Missy coz this is the only cure for Micky’s fantasies! When Micky hesitates, the other option suggested is a visit to a massage parlor for a full-body rubdown - complete with an optional ’’happy ending.’’ While Micky enjoys with his masseuse, his friend Jake goes on a ’date’ with Missy.
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The secret of a Happy marriage........ remains a secret!
So, the whole story is about these three friends who also work together at a Chicago newspaper, all three have their own fundas on marriage & cheating on their spouses. The show wants us to know how one friend loves his wife & dreads someday he would cheat on her & how the other cheats but thinks its okay coz she has no idea of being cheated. The three great guys who represent the married men of modern times are:
Mickey Barnes whose marriage to a beautiful woman, does not prevent him from having stray thoughts about other women.
Doug who seems to be the sensible & successfully married one, he has been able to keep his marriage strong with some self-help ’’marriage tapes’’.
Jake Berman who maintains harmony in his marriage by cheating on his wife, with prostitutes. This according to him doesn’t make him resent his wife ’when she has headaches’’ & he isn’t left ’pining’!
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My Word:
I just happened to watch this show just coz it was right after a favourite serial, even though the title sounded interesting the contents of the show were truly a turnoff [can I use this word here?].
The show is supposed to be funny as it takes a look at the ’dilemmas’ a married man faces in the modern world; which I think is a good topic considering the present work atmosphere where people spend more time in office with their colleagues than they do with their family. However, a serious topic has ended up being a pathetically confused one where all the men cannot keep their minds - and hands - off their female co-workers, where ’’who will bed whom’’ seems to be more discussed than the actual work & where even before he goes for a massage Micky is planning things to do with the masseuse! Yes, I do have some married male friends who joke about how they look at a woman [other than their wife] & the best one I heard tiil date was: pehle dekhta hoon, phir sunta hoon & then sochta hoon!
However, jokes apart, this serial & its male characters are totally chauvinistic; ignoring your responsibility towards family & all the while eyeing women at work as potential bed partners is not funny at all. I don’t think its fair to portray all married men as sex-starved leeches who cannot miss any chance to get a ’good one’.
But then for every such male chauvinistic serial we also have shows like Ally McBeal, where the whole female cast reduces the men to being toy boys. I thought Ally was the worse show ever but now The Mind of Micky Barnes...... takes the crown of the worst show. The most irritating thing in this whole show is Micky’s acting style; with his constant stuttering he can even give our Shahrukh a run for his money.
Thank god for the remote control, I just skip the channel when they air this serial but whenever I see the promos, I do wonder if most married men share the same thoughts as our hero Micky? err...... Santosh? any first comments? lolz