When Television Begins To Rule Your Life

 

Go to any house at 7pm and see everything comes to a standstill. No, be assured, nobody has died or some serious accident has happened.

It is ‘Prime Time’ television and the attention has shifted to the perennial soaps which pervade millions of screens.

All eyes are glued to the screen and the characteristic sniggers and sniffs, resound in the air.The wicked saas ( mother-in-law), normally depicted adorning an entire jewellery shop, is busy scheming against an innocent bahu (daughter-in-law), who may have just entered the household…

Some may dismiss this as trash, but for the majority, this is entertainment ! It is their space and nothing short of a major incident can get their eyes off the screen.

Is this mass entertainment a distraction from the realities of life, or it is actually damaging it?

We spoke to a cross section of Puneites to understand how Television Soaps have impacted their lives.. 

Rohan Achrekar, Engineer says ,” I used to freak out whenever I saw my girlfriend staring at the TV screen.

My girlfriend was obsessed with a soap opera that used to appear 7-8 months back. This one featured the lead actress who was so possessive about her husband that she would  harm herself to get attention.

Whenever I went out with friends, my ‘sick’ girlfriend would call! Else, we would have this hugs fight over a girl from the group. This possessiveness lead to the breakup”. he adds.

I still remember the time when Doordarshan was the only channel, and it had three nice serials that were close to the reality of life, says Amarjeet Rajput, Businessman.

“Times have changed and several new channels have come up. Now every regional language has their own channel. The serials also are new and the Saas-Bahu serials rule the screen and the remotes of the house now.”

“But the content we see now is dreadful and they make a complete fool of the audience. In every serial we have more than one marriage or extra-marital relationships! Today’s serial only has unhealthy topics which leads to doubts within a family. 

“Gosh! Daily soaps today are a total waste of time. I am sure this has caused many families to break apart,”  says Dilip Maske, Purchasing manager.

All unbelievable things happening in these serials. We all are missing those meaningful serials like Ashoka Samrat, Prithviraj Chauhan, Byomkesh bakshi.

“I am 58 years old,I stay with my son and daughter in law.I love to watch daily soaps  every single day. I would not miss it for anything,” says Kalavati Deshmukh,housewife

“I love watching soap operas because they stressed on family values. People are always making sacrifices for each other. It teaches us to live together happily within the family and care for each other.” she adds.

“Saas-bahu stories  have always being theatrical, removed from reality and often reactionary,” says Swati Pillai, Professor.

“Some of the stories are quite aggressive− they show men slapping women. In the family structure, there is always a  devilish mother-in-law who flaunt enormous power over her submissive daughter-in-law. They reinforced gender stereotypes and hierarchies in the family system, sometimes fine, at others not-so-fine.” she adds

~~

#All views expressed in this column are those of the individual respondents (name changed on request) and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.