The Hindi Serial 'Killers'

I was more than excited to start watching serials which glued my grandma and the other housewives in my building to the Idiot box. The intermediate studies for IITJEE gave me no time to enjoy, so I only decided to give it a try when I came home after my first year. Little did I know that I would learn such a great deal of stuff from them –

Every serial starts out in a happy setting of a poor but sufficient family. They lead a normal life and crack awfully bad PJs to make fun ( this gets my folks laughing and makes me want to kill myself).  The family generally consists of a poor sore loser of a dad, a mother who cries a lot and often multiple children. If there is only a single child in the serial then there will always be (yes, we should include it in the universal truth list) the neighbor’s kid or the maid’s kid who comes into their house as if it were their own. So we come to the main protagonist – who so obviously is the child in the family. It generally is always a girl because to increase their TRP the protagonist has got to cry and boys crying would not generate empathy but would just be gay…  The heroine is always shown studying or working diligently at her school/office and comes home to stupid PJs. This setting is fun and people really do enjoy (God himself is clueless as to how)… but how long can the director maintain the TRP with that, so they add the first ingredient- " Crying " - Anyone is allowed to cry but when the heroine does it adds more emotional appeal. The crying is often categorized into 3 different situations, it’s as if I can write an if-else statement to predict it :

A) When someone in the family commits suicide (Happens very rarely)

B) If the girl is unmarried, then her going to be husband comes with a bunch of biker friends to make stupid comments like “ ghar tak chod du” (can I drop you off at your house). This gets the heroine furious and she storms off to her house (Ya because the police are always shown as incompetent and often lined up with the jerk husband). Then comes the process where she weeps while telling her family and then the family start weeping too. At the end of the cry-baby convention, the meeting is adjourned and the decision taken is that they will somehow have to stop this and punish the miscreant (Like that will ever be possible).

C) If the girl is married, then she is told something awful by her in-laws. She generally hears everything when she is told on the face even if it is all wrong and she knows that she has not done it. At this my grandma always remarks “Look how good she actually is, she doesn’t let them know that it was the other girl who is actually responsible”. I don’t say anything, but I rather believe that ‘dumb’ fits in better than ‘good’.

After the girl decides that she will take revenge for the bike incident, she plans something and initially the people are very happy as she is successful. But BAM!!! There is a trick in that, which the miscreant (now hero of the serial) easily exploits and after winning and destroying the revenge plan, they take only 1 prize – marriage with the heroine (seems like the script writer has run out of ideas so he decides to write an ‘Ekta’).

After this, for a few days they show the atrocities the heroine faces in her in-laws’ house. The husband can’t really beat her up or rape her (It’s a family show not a porn flick), so soon enough there is a requirement of a new villain to maintain the TRPs. The husband turns good and blames it all on some external force (maybe called Satan).

Enter the mother-in-law – Loud make up, excess of lipstick over powdered nose and a flashing bright pink colored sari (reminds me of my high-school headmistress). She enters and is shown the all-powerful in the house. She clearly comes to wreak havoc on the poor heroine. At this point sarcastic and sadist people like me also feel bad, but then the plans and schemes she adopts are truly brilliant –

1. She adds more spice into the dal. She thinks that the heroine will be screamed at, but instead the family praises her as they ‘always eat bland food’.

2. She insults the heroine’s family in front of the guests, the girl comes back with a stupid and totally meaningless philosophical dialogue. The guests applaud at ‘how well the girl has been brought up’

3. She puts a blue dye to ruin her washed white clothes; the maid sees this and washes it again getting rid of the blue dye.

The famous vamps of the Hindi TV shows

After the miserable and failed attempts, the director requests the script writer to bring in some new spark. This is usually done as an ex-lover of the hero/heroine and my grandma always goes like “Stupid boy/girl you should be happy with what you have”. Yes absolutely, I mean who doesn’t want a girl who wears jewellery and sari to the bed.

You might not realize, but what I described in last 3 paragraphs has actually taken 5 years to happen. By that time fans in the real world have actually died only to be replaced by newly wedded couples. It’s awesome as to how the serial cast newer ages. They must have mastered the art of living young forever which even poor Tithonus couldn’t do.

 This ex-lover is disliked by the family and often is the final villain of the story. This ex-lover is shown to be a criminal mastermind who weaves a tale about why she has come to stay with them ( The stories are so absurd that even a 2-year old can spot the loopholes).

She somehow convinces the hero to join her in whatever her mission is. This is the final limit which she crosses, as then the entire family turns to the heroine for help (As we had turned to Durga maata when Mahishasura troubled us). The heroine plays her ultimate game move, checkmates and vanquishes the vile ex-lover into the abyss, thus returning normalcy in the family… And voila, 7 years have passed and lots of money has been made. A truly successful series for the director!!!

The director and the crew thank the audience, my grandma sheds tears and I heave a sigh of relief!!!
After watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Prison Break, the bar was obviously set high but the Hindi TV Serials painted a new picture all together.