TV Serials

Prafulla kumar Mohanty

It seems we are a bored set of morons watching insipid serials in the so called entertainment channels, all afternoon and evening just to relieve the tedium of being alive. The modern reality does not, perhaps, offer any excitement to engage ourselves creatively. And what is the fare offered by the thousands of TV serial directors and story tellers? Superstitions, ghosts, black art and adulterous relationships going sour or some historicals without history. We watch middle class and upper middle class homes as the serial writers mostly pander to the taste of the middle class. The women folk comprise the audience as they enjoy leisure in the post –lunch hours at home and pass the time waiting for the children to return from schools. The rich and the fashionable enjoy the kit parties, card games on high stakes or certain other clandestine games beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. The poor move from house to house washing, scrubbing and sweeping and return in the evening to suffer erratic temper at home. These women too watch the TV jealously looking at the sarees, jewellery, carpets, and interior decorations of well lighted homes in the Mithaiwalla or Daruwalla families. But the small screen in their lone  bulb hanging kholis arouse petty desires only- like  imitation jewellery.

The serials are never ending. The director will argue, we are giving you the joys of joint family where three generations live together. They share the problems with equal concern. We show you how adjustments are made to maintain the glory of a clan....etc. But in reality what is shown is competition among the members to break the family. They eat together, sitting at a massive and attractive dining table, but more than food gossip and conspiracy make the food saucy.  The twists and turns which are shown by brilliant directors will shame the Master who ( if at all) makes us dance  to his tunes. The sudden shifts from, sublime to ridiculous, romantic to bathos make the viewer  scratch his head in utter confusion. And when you watch the wife spying on her husband, the mother on daughter you are flabbergasted. You forget the primitive instinct when you see nagins taking human shape- often sexy dolls – for revenge, you start questioning Hamlet’s procrastination, did it end with one life? Or it lingered on to the next? The TV serials play with our credulity at the cost of credibility.

Well, we are all entertainment hungry. A little fantasy on the TV screen may give us good sleep after a day’s struggle. But the directors do not know how to fantasize for they make the fantasy too fantastic to please. Imagination may run riot but it should not ruin the very fabric of reality without which life is inconceivable. The dialogues in most serials are meant for the non- serious people who never feel that they belong to the rooted culture of the human race; as if man is a small creature constantly moved by passions. Jealousy, revenge, conspiracy, scheming, plotting and cheating are more prominently shown than love, sympathy, respect for values and love of all graces of life. The serials demonstrate  that woman is the worst enemy of woman. While all governments in the states and at the centre are being blamed for their failure to protect women, the serials show stalking, chases, kidnapping and all such ignominious things with impunity. The director argues –  in the end nemesis catches up with evil. The guilty are punished, yes, but what is shown in the name of reality is not art, it is  sheer commercialization of negativity to overwhelm  us with bold visuals.

We need good serials but if the serial's longevity is more than that of the proverbial nine lives of a cat it plays on your nerves. A story must end without hacking our sense of moral justice. The Reality Show often appears to be pre- scripted. The faces in such shows are dumb and they play the banal reality of their minds. The KS shows do not provoke laughter- the hilarity of a release- only pity that the presiding judge of the shows gets clean bowled at every caper.

We need entertainment .We need bold serials on the graver issues of life, not advertisements of saree, jewellery and interior decorations. Give us pure entertainment, bold themes of social veracity and dialogue which would enrich our taste. We don’t hate serials but make them loveworthy.