Truth, anyone?


Let’s face the truth here. We really are better off with Ekta Kapoor (Gasp! Her name begins with ‘E’. She should call her self Kkekta Kapoor). Jobless women bitching about each other, running around the house hatching plots; going to sleep in couture and flashy jewellery; and crying without spoiling their make-up. ‘Suspension of disbelief’? Little did Coleridge know!

Why, you ask, must we put up with this make-believe soppy drama and episodes number 9,99,999, and eternally-living and eternally-sobbing saas-es and bahus? Because we’re not ready for anything better. Or so the government will have you believe. Eternally controlling what our naive TV-audience should watch, in a latest, they’ve decided Sach ka Samna, the Indian version of The Moment of Truth (Another ‘inspired’ show, of course) asks “obscene questions” and thereby corrupts our pure ‘Indian’ morality.

Well, what were you expecting? They’d extol the show for talking about sex, cheating, marital discord, drugs and single-motherhood on TV? Chhee, chhee… Shocking! That is just way too truthful and goes against everything Indian tradition and values stand for. It’s not about not staying away from any of these things… but about not admitting to them. You can do what you want, of course, that’s perfectly alright: polygamy, discrimination, domestic violence and drugs. But that doesn’t mean you be open about them… that too on national television!

It took our films decades to have actors kissing rather than the flowers doing it on their behalf, though Deepa Mehta and Nandita Das are still censored. MF Husain is unable to return to India and we still suck up to a farce of a film on homosexuality with a corny title Dostana (My Brother Nikhil is offbeat, so too bad, we don’t watch it). We can’t miss that 9,99,999th episode for anything.

Well then, for the poor audience we are, guess it is for granddads in parliament to decide what’s best for us. Your guardians have spoken. Finish your soap and off to bed!

3 comments:

Fully grown fuzzy Hipposaur said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fully grown fuzzy Hipposaur said...

More like, "make sure you scrub yourself clean with that soap!"

Jayeeta Mazumder said...

Very cool!