Udaan or Balika Badhu? Who is the role model NOW?

Now that I am off my hectic work schedules and irregular hours, needless to say, most of my time is spent reading, writing or merely working out.  Basically living life on my terms. I know many would find that problematic! But anyhow...

So here I was  sitting and  chatting  with my sister who surprised all of us with a visit from Bombay. She is short tempered but always manages to have a valid reason for her anger. (And that is not an excuse, especially when I am at the receiving end of things most of the times.) 


Her anger this time was directed towards the quality of TV serials that happened to be on air on various channels.

These are definitely some confusing if not interesting times that we are living in. On one hand we are talking of compulsory education for all children, we also are talking of women's reservation bill. And most importantly we are making sure that no child gets through primary or secondary school without having written a rather lengthy essay on the 'New Age Indian Woman!!!'


So what happens after that? Suddenly the entire population starts seeing the New age woman in Anandi? (Balika Badhu child star). Honestly! The Tulsis' and the Aparnas' of the world did not trouble me as much as these under aged child protagonists do. We all know that child marriage is an issue, we all agreed long time back that this is a social evil. So what exactly does the production houses hope to achieve by putting up a sloppy version of this twisted reality? 

Following the bandwagon are half a dozen shows on various entertainment channels dealing with a similar issue of marriage in the garb of trying to come out with a solution. What I don't understand is what happened to small town girls like Kalyani from the serial Udaan? She did not have to wear heavy make-up, chanderi saaris or for that matter of fact designer bindis? And she got her point across rather strongly. We learnt the importance of education, self-respect etc, etc...

I am not saying that social evils will disappear on their own if you don't talk about it. But can someone convince me that this is the only way to deal with child marriage, female-foeticide  and other existing evils??? And if so, how is it helping? By merely putting a disclaimer that these practices by no means are celebrated by the channel does not makes it go away!


As a child, I know for a fact that I did not have clarity of thoughts. If I saw Kalyani, the protagonist who was strong, hard working and committed to her cause, I believed that was the only way to grow up! I wanted to be someone like her. I wanted my father to be very very proud of me. 

What are the little girls of our times aspiring to be? Anandi? Ikcha? Or do the creators of these  serials expect  children to have the maturity and the understanding of an adult to deal with entertainment without taking it too seriously?


You dress up an under age girl. You give her fancy jewellary, great clothes and not nag her with school lessons! What you have created is not a protagonist but a virtual nightmare for mothers all over the country! Just take a look at some of the names of these serials, 'Peehar', 'Hamari Devrani', 'Choti Bahu', 'Sajan Ghar Jana hai', 'Geet Hui sabse  parayi'! I can go on and on. How liberating are these titles? And what can we possibly hope to learn or teach with the help of these great work of art??

Are you telling me that girls growing up in small towns and villages are supposed to make these  their role model?


Most of us believe that the younger generation is always a step ahead of its previous one. But I am rather ashamed to say that we as a generation have proved this to be wrong at least in the case of quality entertainment. Rather than focusing on child marriage and only marriage as the main goal of a growing up girl, I am sure we can show much more that will prove to be beneficial to them. 


Just by making a face over the hideous 'K' serials won't do! Or saying that our children understand the difference also won't take away the larger responsibility that we all have towards the children growing up in the midst of this high level drama!
These are the times when melodrama and nonsensical emotions are merely a remote control away. Switch on anything from news to entertainment. And you have the level of drama that one only saw in yesteryear Hindi films!


It's a pity that when science and technology has progressed so much. And our reach to anything is not limited, we are still hell bent in living inside our smelly and obscure closet. Come out of it and breathe right! That's how our children will learn to live right. 

At the end of the day the truth remains that you might be able to make sense of lines like , "Main tumhein chainn se jeene nahi doongi"(I shall not let you live in peace) and, "Hum ladka dekhne nahi, ladki dikhane jaa rahein hain," (We are not going for the selection of a groom, rather we are going there so that our girl can be selected as a bride). But your child does not. 


P.S.(Isn't it better having your child  refer to you as Ma or amma than Ma Saa. Even better, try calling your daughter Laddo and see what I mean!)