Soap Operas and the emotional garbage they serve

With due respect to the people, who enjoy daily soaps that rule the Hindi TV industry and get the actors, producers and people associated, great chunks of money, this post is to elaborate the kind of garbage they serve to the audience. Gone is the time when a "Humlog", or a "Dekh bhai dekh" would be created to touch your hearts or tickle your funny bone. Now is the era of overtly pan-caked women protagonists and vamps burning mid-night oil to contemplate some heinous crime! Not a single character will settle for a single marriage, their fundamental is "ye dil mange more" and hence they marry, divorce, re-marry, divorce and it goes on and on. Well, well! I have nothing against divorce and remarriages, but the same tale everywhere is more than nauseating to me. 

These tales which virtually never end, will most-definitely not be comprised of well-thought characters and well-executable plots, they appear more or less impromptu story telling that branches and re-branches depending on public demand. While some of the soaps have managed to create a niche in this wild forest of insensibilities, most of them dwell in the realms of money making as the only motive. “Sasural Simar Ka” a tale which is largely popular have taken to incorporating black-magic and hell lot of unimaginable trash to get TRPs. And then there is “Nagin” which gives you a feeling of Deja vu and you reach some strange movie of the eighties, which you can hardly relate to in this scenario. And most of them start with showcasing a basic responsibility towards the society, as in spreading the thought “goodness makes you a winner”. But after few episodes they forget, and throughout the show, till some odd “1000***” episodes the modest/humble good one is constantly trashed by the smart bad one. Then finally one day the channel decides to discontinue airing the trash and replace it with another, when the makers forcefully show the good one as a winner.

But my bigger concern is the detrimental role these retarding tales have on the audience. With an era which is progressing at a lightning speed, there are still many who indulge into these. And what impact does these leave on the minds of millions of viewers with its black magic, kitchen politics and multiple broken marriages? Time to think and time to serve sense to the viewers.

A still from Sasural Simar ka

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta