Monday, December 27, 2010

And So, I Had Myself a Merry Little Christmas

And I hope you did too!

Mum's here and we were out for 7-8 hours at a stretch on both days (Sat & Sun). We did the lunch-movie-coffee-shopping shindig. I was amazed at the amount of energy and enthusiasm my mom still has! Unlike my dad who's favorite activity is to watch TV - and who thinks family bonding = watching TV together - my mom is always willing to go out for lunch/ movie/ shopping. And she doesn't tire easily.

You know what eye-openers mothers' visits are? I'm talking of Indian mothers, of course. Apart from the tips she'll give you on how to live your life, what to eat/not eat etc., your mother will also introduce you to these strange shows on TV. On Colors, Sony, Zee and Star Plus to be precise. Shows where they paint a woman's face black or join her eyebrows with an eye pencil or make her eyebrows thick as Imran Khan's (the actor, not the cricketer...have you seen how thick his eye brows are?) to make her look ugly. Where women wear the blingiest, most exotic saris and are decked up in 20 tonnes of gold irrespective of whether they're at home or at a wedding. Where they are perfectly made up with the best of M.A.C. products and have not a hair out of place even when they're sleeping. Where women who are slightly more educated or ambitious are invariably vamps who spend their entire day plotting & conniving against the other docile women of the household and making strange faces, trying to look evil. Where the dialogues play in the background while the evil woman rotates her eye balls in every existent & non-existent direction, to show what mean thing she's thinking!

The kind of crap Indian television dishes out is amazing. And my mother, like millions of other smart, educated women across India watch it with the utmost dedication. She is glued to the TV between 7-9pm watching all kinds of assorted crap, and she watches them with a lot of involvement and emotion, giving her own comments and insights, lauding the "heroine" and chastising the vamp, tsk-tsking at the appalling state of society as shown in such serials. It's almost as entertaining to watch my mother watch those shows as it is to watch the shows themselves. Bhagya Vidhata, Balika Vadhu, Nakusha (this one's particularly hilarious), Uttaran, Na Aana Is Desh Lado...the list is endless. And funniest of all, she even wants to have a discussion with me during the commercial breaks and tells me what lessons in life one learns on watching such shows!
I really wants to know what is it about these shows that has our mothers so tightly in their grasp? Is your mom hooked onto prime time regressive television as well?

16 comments:

Moonshine said...

My mom watches Balika Badhu and the Nakusha one!!! It really is sad isnt it!! My mom also talks about "moral of the story" from the Balika Badhu serial. I think she had envisaged the Nakusha one to be like an MB style story - I have no idea whats it turned out to be now!!!

At times.. for the lack of something to watch .. just tryng watching one of these soaps!!! It is funny, to say the least.

Magical Homes said...

oh yes!!

Bluestocking said...

These shows are not just regressive but belie all logic. I remember there was this one show where the main characters were supposed to have become grandparents and great grandparents between several generation leaps but still had love triangles to contend with!!!

Scarlett said...

@Moonshine - I've tried but I just can't sit through them. For one, they're painfully slow...

@Mumbai Diva - Do you watch them too? LOL :P

@Bluestocking - It's hilarious how people in these shows become grandparents within a couple of episodes of having a baby themselves! Their hair never greys (if it does, it becomes white in a very funny way), and they still have complications in their love lives!

Ru. said...

I think they come from a time period that moms can relate to...or at least on the TV thats what they find worth watching instead of Katrina kaif in skimpy clothes and other bizzarre channels!
thankfully my mother is not much into this. Even at this age, she reads and writes ten times more than me!!

Scarlett said...

@Melee - In the case of my mom, it's not so much that she relates to the regressive shows we're talking about, but she prefers watching those shows to reality TV b/c they tell a story. Like serials earlier used to. Our parents generation is very selective of the reality shows they watch - one of them would be KBC. And they don't find music channels worth watching.

bricks said...

Very night as I reach home, I am welcomed by the loud voice of 'Pavitra rishtaaaa aah'. If my mom misses an episode, she waits for the repeat telecast in the late night! I am told the shows start from 7!!
I have stopped wondering what makes these shows such a mom-puller.

Scarlett said...

@Bricks - Yes, they go from 7-9pm and 10-11 again!

eye-in-sty-in said...

The soaps are a waste of time - but Saas bhi bahu thi was my mom's fav. Right now, there is no cable in the house and the withdrawal symptoms have been over come :-)

Real socialising has increased after cutting the cord!

eye-in-sty-in said...

to add - my friends mom watches the re-runs and feels "disturbed" if guests happen to arrive at that time. Makes me think - how can anyone watch RE RUNS of such drivel thats so painful to watch for the first time??!@@ Dont people realise they have limited hours in their life ;-)

the-mommie said...

It is seriously difficult to believe this but India has managed to export its regressive ekta-kapoor serials to Romania! Every afternoon, they play some daily soap or the other. I discovered this when I first got here 2 yrs back! To put it mildly, it was horrifyingly shocking!

I mean really! For me, watching Salman Khan on Romanian National TV is more tolerable!

Happy New Year to you too! :)

Scarlett said...

@eye-in-sty-in - Watching re-runs of such crap is PATHETIC.

@Mommie - Do Romanians watch those shows? Or mostly Indian expats? Sad part is that people there are going to think Indian society is all about the crap that's shown in those regressive soaps. Quite like soaps such as 'Bold & Beautiful' built our (Indians') perception of American society way back in the 90s.

Tamanna said...

Hahahah! Tell me about it! :D Moms! :D

Have a rocking 2011, home girl! :)

Scarlett said...

@Tamanna - Happy New Year and a great 2011 to you as well! I see you've already got off to a rocking start ;)

Ru. said...

happy new year 2011 :)
where is the new year post?

Scarlett said...

@Melee - My laptop at home isn't working & work's been hectic. But I'm hoping to do one soon...fingers crossed!