Soaps Sans Sanity!

Chowk staff, can you please ensure that your writers meet some basic readability criteria. What on earth is this: Today, in twenty 21st century era, when we hold remote control of a hundred channels, most of the fingers stick to only one and keep on trying to increase the clutch, until someone else is able to snatch.

Emma Alam, despite your atrocious writing, I tend to agree with a few of your points. Characters in soaps ARE caricatures; the women are weak, docile, subservient or alternatively shrewish, cunning and hard-hearted. Males are all-dominating, misogynistic and invariably `successful` multimillionaires who wear suits even to bed (the women wear heavy sarees and designer jewellery). Characters are either ``good``or ``bad`` since the producers ostensibly believe that weaving shades of grey will be too much to handle for the simple Indian audiences. Sometimes a ``good` character turns ``bad``...and vice versa.

A woman being trapped in a loveless marriage, through no fault of her own, is expected to persevere and work on it, often futilely, rather than walk out. ``Samaaj mein muuh dikhaane laayak nahi rahengay`` (we shall not be fit to show our faces in society) is the recurring refrain, to the extent that in one soap (Vaidehi), the impotent husband of the protagonist commands his foster brother- at the behest of his ``ijjatdaar`` father, no less- to rape his wife (the protagonist) when she`s under the influence of a sleeping draught, so that the ``khandaan`` can have its ``waaris``(heir). The ``good`` son, while initially reluctant, goes along after being reminded of the wonderful things father dearest has done for him. After a few days, the daughter in law forgets to take her doped milk and discovers her brother-in-law in her bedroom getting a trifle too cozy. Does she walk out in disgust/revulsion/sheer terror? NO! She actually gives him a fair hearing, dertermines that he in fact is ``good``, has not slept with her and has no intention of doing so and in fact uses the fact of his obvious attraction to her as bait to torment her impotent ``bad`` husband!
It`s utterly incredible, these shenanigans going on in the guise of wholesome family entertainment. I wonder which woman is wholly comfortable watching this crap. But i suppose it sells- a rational, level-headed soap like Astitva will never garner the same kind of viewership as a Kyunki Saas.... or Kasauti Zindagi Kay....sigh.

These soaps only worth ``Washing Hands N` Face``.........................

The only soaps worth mentioning and watching in the history of the soaps were DD-India`s ``Hum Log`` and ``Buniyaad`` (one having Laajo ji and Master Haveli ram), rest are simply crap and poor way of filling the time slots.No one with least bit of sensibilities can bear these ``draaaaaaaamaaaaaaas`` in the name of entertainment.

cheerios

saat sau crore ka ``project``, there projetct never stop coming, nd still they live in shabby looking houses that even i can afford easily.

Once a mother in law saw a stranger coming out of the room of her Bahoo, but didn`t say ne thing nd go away quitely, why, simple `Kiun ki saas bhi kabhi bahoo thi`.

There are other common threads running through serials:

A girl from a poor/middle class family marrying into a tycoon`s family. These days an age difference of about 20 years is par for the course.
The hero and heroine rarely marry for love but for every other reason- financial blackmail, the heroine`s sister/hero`s brother runs away from the mandap with another man/woman, marrying for avenging the death of a father, brother or dead lover etc. They of course fall in love with each other.
The protagonist family is either Gujju, Bania or Punjoo while a Bong d-i-l is the vamp in each.
The hero marries an average of 3.5 times, the heroine marries 2.7 times.
Grandmas and grandpas look as young as Ash/SRK


Regards

``nevertheless women are keen to watch these stereotype figures on screen, dreaming themselves in those gaudy outfits, loaded with jewels, gems and pearls. This kind of fantasy proves a relief to every next-door girl woman; such world of imagination takes them far away from their daily hectic routine life in the form of an escape.``

Believe me, women with ``hectic routine life`` neither have time, nor patience for Soaps. Occasionally, one may pause in front of the TV screen to take a glimpse of the hero in ``stylish clothes and accessories``, but please, why would any woman want to waste time to watch other women loaded with jewels, gems, or whatever? They could, instead, spend the time in taking their you-know-what to work, so that they can afford to buy their own gems and jewels. (God bless the store that sells three pieces of jewellery for $10.00 that can make you look like a soap queen... So, all you women out there, stop dreaming and go shopping!:)

Can someone explain Kabhie Souten Kabhie Saheli?