Numerous Indian channels dishing out various TV serials are ever popular especially with the women folk. Channel surfing, my favorite pass time activity… I go click, click, click… I stop at this, the house doesn’t look like a house but a palatial palace where everyone is so well dressed from the head of the family to the cooks, maids and house boy, you name it and they are all there to see, all well groomed looking like as if they are ready to attend a wedding. No, but it’s a normal day in this particular household.
An early morning scene and there you see them all getting up from the bed with full makeup, fancy clothes and accessories and don’t forget to notice their hair in tact, not a strand has slipped its place. How come?
A festival comes and you see more lavish sets, more makeup, weird hair dos, glittering costumes, artificial jewellery and a literal riot of colors for your eyes. One can easily get carried away by the surreal extravagant life styles portrayed. Is it a dream? No it is not, it’s only a day to day affair in any of the serials one is watching.
Twists and turns in the story line. A death in the family, the whole scene changes, you once again see all the family members in crisp whites, again with makeup and eyes done up with smoky looks with those false eye lashes to go with it and if you get to see a close-up shot of the characters then you will also notice the blackish grey tears rolling down the rosy made-up cheeks with those curly eye lashes trying to flutter making way for the eye makeup to slowly trickle down! Are you moved by the scene? Depends.
Here we are soaking in all that has been dished out and feeling the emotions that go through these characters and I must tell you a few of them I know are so much into it that they cut the conversation on the phone saying that their serial time has come and they got to go. Such is the power of television serials.
The other day, as I switched on the Television, I saw the distraught mother’s face with no tears, so grief stricken was she that words failed to tell the viewers her agony and pain which she was going through for the past few years on losing her only daughter. Tears filled my eyes; it was too sad an incident. I couldn’t take it any longer, I got up from the couch and walked away from the TV screen to sit alone for a while and give a thought to the real world we are living in and the reel world we are watching daily.
Was this any popular TV serial? No, it wasn’t. There were no lavish sets; no good looking women and their likes but here was a real mother who had lost her daughter in the most tragic of circumstances one can think of. Five years ago her daughter was brutally raped and murdered by a cab driver who was supposed to reach her safely to her office during the grave yard shift which was a common thing with the employees of the IT/BT/BPO sectors during their blooming years. He had committed this heinous crime on the most unsuspecting victim who had got into his cab that fateful night.
As the judge passed the verdict and gave the criminal a life sentence this is what the victim’s mother had to say, “At least he will have company in jail. Come and see in my house, I am all alone and tears are only my company”.
Whether justice was done to this case or not, I do not know but the cry of this mother has touched my heart and I pray that such a thing should never happen to any one any where, for mother’s love for her children whether living or dead will always remain unconditional and unfathomable.
As far as the Television serials are concerned, it will not stop but don’t we have the remote in hand?
