Here's a goodbye

All,

As I have mentioned earlier this week, I have decided to stop watching Balika Vadhu. When I first began watching the show, it had been years since I watched any Indian shows. Because it is beyond my comprehension how soaps can be primetime! And none of the shows had any storyline, atleast a believable one. When I first heard about Balika Vadhu, it did sound unique and interesting. I started to read updates posted back then to catch on to the story. I was hooked. Just like Shreya, I truly believed BV was going to change the face of Indian TV. And at first it did, but now I feel, its changed for the worse!

We now have a slew of shows, all supposed to be based on "real" issues, when really the issues are either too frivolous (like one show that seem to focus on silly things like hairstyle, spicy food, bad saris..wth) or they are so downright evil that you cannot comprehend how a sane person is supposed to believe it.

Knowing that BV is about the ills of child marriage, I expected some "torture" and melodrama, but going by the recent tracks, some of the tracks have nothing to do with child marriage and are just created to make the main character suffer and cry. How is this different from older shows that all had a pathetic demise since they had been dragged too long? There is nothing believable in BV right now. People are shown aging rapidly, while still remaining to look the same. This is exactly what is shown in other serials, where a woman/man barely in 20's or 30's have 5 or 6 kids who are well into their 40's sometimes. Ugh!

I really miss those days when cable first made its appearance on Indian tube and there were so many weekly shows that were so entertaining. I wish things would go back to being that way, but I don't see it happening for atleast another 5 yrs. So I have yet again lost my patience with stupid shows that are neither entertaining nor do they have any real social issues to make you think seriously. We all probably have more entertaining things happening in our real lives!

So after all this venting, here's a big thank you to all you people who have commisserated with me and nodded your head along with me on good story tracks and made my time so much fun. I will probably stay in the background posting stuff or replying to threads, but will not be posting any updates after today.

Thanks guys and right now I DON"T love idiotbox!

first of all a big hug🤗for posting the updates so regularly thru all the dumb tracks esp the recent anandi gets kicked out of sasural. sorry ilib...i dunno ur name yet(my bad memory actually). u wont believe it my state of mind is same as urs. apart from BV the other 2 sensible shows i watch(antara and ladies special) are also being ignored by their respective channels. cannot blame the channels completely as atleast they tried their best by giving the shows a good slot initially. but obviously most viewers in india dont think like me...so currently im in no mood to be liberal to indian television.

actually the current state of shows can be partly blamed on herd mentality. one show is successful and the rest start following the same path shown by the successful show. channels are simply not ready to take chances...big money is involved and i guess like the rest of us the channel guys only want save their jobs at any cost. so thanks to their herd mentality we had 8 years of k shows and now its the trend of b shows(or rather rural shows). but whether k shows or b shows things remain the same. ie the belief that only a woman's tears bring in trps. for tears make her suffer, suffer and suffer some more. only the variety of suffering changes from show to show and now not even that(its become common to have girls being sold off as sex slaves in all shows!).

BV arrived as a breath of fresh air last year...and i thought now things will change. but somehow i feel the high trps during pratap's death has proved to be the show's undoing as far as viewers like me are concerned. the show garnered the highest trps in among all shows since a long time and that made the channel and producers greedy for more. they wanted more TRPs for more years. and what did they find when they saw the reason for the trps? suguna's tears! hence since then we saw suguna and anandi cry, cry and only cry. and after a hard day at work im in no mood for constantly depressing tracks. so its better not to watch tv at all! also i geess around that time they decided to not to have any leap as the actors had gotten too popular. and really how much of childhood masti can they show and still keep the show going for ages. so we have things go round and round in circles with anandi acting immature...getting scolded and then more tears...they start the cycle again!

also I feel shows like BV which a psuedo real are prolly harming the society more than the more commericial yeh rishta and bidaai. atleast for these shows viewers know that they must expect masala for entertainment. the makers/channel dont claim to do social work when their intention is nothing but trps. in reality colors has made a business out of so call real shows. in reality its like they are pimping a certain type of suffering in each of their show in the name of reality. they only start off with an issue but soon things come down to trps. so whether its child marriage or female infantcide the so called real shows are only to garner good press. soon the media attention moves to something else and colors has had its good press..so people are interested and they get down to their real business.

even i miss the DD days and the early cable days. when i think of those shows im at times shocked at how indian television has changed. but unlike ilib i dont have any hopes of things changing. i feel indian tv is moving towards american tv in terms of reality shows and shows like bold n the beautiful in terms of serials. not a great thought!

anyways having ranted so much i know nothing will change in BV. once viewers are used to a show they continue watching it. and as long as viewers are watching they continue dragging it. so those who are still watching be prepared for more sadistic and depressing tracks. as for me i'll be around in the forum...but im not sure how much i will be contributing. if ur still here...thanks for reading my rant.

Hi Shreya,

My name is Priya

I soooooooooooooooo miss the old TV shows. Thankfully I was able to find some of them online on youtube or other sites so I am rewatching some of them. They are a little corny, but way better than what's on now!

American TV is no better, but one thing I love is there is variety, and not the same show every single day. Also, its hard not to find shows you love. Some or the other channel is bound to play shows that you love! Reality TV in US is on its way out...other than 3-4 reality shows, most are limited to playing before 8 pm or after 11 pm, which suits me just fine!

At the end of a gruelling work day, I would like to throw my head back and laugh watching TV...not stress over some stupid old woman trying to break the resolve of some 13 yr old ideal bahu, I will end up giving myself an ulcer!

Priya,
Thanks for posting all the updates and in detail. Sad to know that u will no longer be watching this show, hope to see u change your mind soon.

Best wishes

Thanks a million Priya for having tortured yourself watching all those crap episodes and posting sweet updates🤗..

I almost started watching the old episodes of BV to pinpoint exactly what it is about the serial that has slipped up so much and has made it just another serial. Kshreya 2002 has done an admirable job listing all the issues. Let me see if I can add to the list -
1. I miss the old camera work which had more stillness and less movement
2. I miss the old background music which had more quiet and pauses and less music
3. I miss the slow movement of the story which gave us enough time to appreciate the development of the characters.
4. The characters are not developing lineraly. I think that things turned south for the show with the death of Pratap. I think that by sacrificing Pratap's character, the producers were in a situation where they wanted to both show the suffering of widows and also root for widow remarriage. In between, they had a harebrained idea of showing the bad effects of pre-gauna "relationships" and ended up sticking Suguna with a pregnancy and themselves in a corner. The writers were then stuck. They had stood on a soap box and now wanted to step down. Who wants to watch Suguna sitting in a dark kothari and crying for Pratap? Nobody. Who wants to show a discreet abortion and Suguna in a city actually trying to get an education? Well....that might be realistic, but gasp! can you really get much episodes out of someone hitting the books and swotting? Hey lets do a Bollywood and get a sharp goodlooking young knight so that some impressionable teens start watching the story!
The current track of a wealthy landowner being stuck with a daughter in law who is widowed and pregnant by another man is so unlikely it is downright depressing. There are face saving platitudes advising us to give widows a naya jeevan printed each time at the end of the serial which want me to tear my hair out. First, you stick us with improbable story lines and then you pontificate at us!
5. Characters change their personalities too much and too quickly - the swings are too sharp to be realistic. Shyam's mother hating and then loving Suguna, Pratap's mother changing from a docile respectable lady to a goonda queen, Anandi's parents have been reduced to impulsive idiots by now. Even Maasa, who was a stern authoritarian but one with clear and traditional values has been reduced to a caricature who gets Anandi to burn her books in an act of spite.
6. WHY oh WHY have the writers converted the once adorable Anandi into a self obsessed snivelling whining idiot with the sensitivity of a buffalo? Worse still is the potential damage done to what was a promising talent. This kid will probably develop some very wrong habits of overacting.
7. Situations are being created and resolved too quickly...Anandi's dismissal from her home, her parent's tragedies, and her recovery - moved with the pace and credibility of a film from the 50's. Overacting all around. Sigh
8. Too many new characters being introduced and sped through the serial. Mahavir singh etc..
9. Too many convenient trips taken by Bhairon and Shyam when 'bad things happen'...
Honestly, I think that the serial will continue as is because there is no pressure to change. The only difference is that I think a lot less highly of the people who are responsible for this serial.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful updates you've provided, Priya! I can understand your decision to officially quit finally....the show has become beyond unbearable now.

Sad is the state of Indian TV currently indeed....I find nothing on it that is worthy watching anymore.

my real problem with this show, and the reason i cannot watch it, is the unrelenting evil they show nowadays.