How real is the reel Gujarati family shows ?

How real is the reel Gujarati family shows ?


Monday - May 18, 2009
Tushar Patel - Televisionpoint.com | Ahmedabad
May 15 was the International Day of Families. Televisionpoint.com spoked to some producers and television viewers in the Ahmedabad city to find out whether the great Gujarati family shown on the small screen is representative of the real one or not.

Over the last couple of years, the boisterous Punjabi family was replaced on the television by the often humorous and affable Gujarati one. This meant that for millions of viewers, words like 'Kem cho,' 'dhokla,' 'thepla' and 'khakra,' became a part of their lives and vocabulary. So did a variety of lovable characters that portrayed the Gujarati joint family.

Indian television shows like Burey Bhi Hum Bhale Bhi Hum, Taarak Mehta Ka Oolta Chasma, Hamari Devrani, Shree and Bandini are some of the recent shows on television, which have also taken the Gujarati family at the centre of their focus.

Producer JD Majethia says that the audience always wants to see things larger than life on screen. However, the big question is whether Gujarati's find the portrayal of their culture accurate and realistic in the myriad shows that one finds on telly.

"We can't make our characters wear simple clothes because if we did so then people won't be attracted to our shows - glamour sells and we have to make some modifications accordingly. Now we are also showing nuclear families and working women in our shows and that is a reflection of the changes happening in Gujarati families," says Majethia.

Brand marketer Alka Patel, who watches some of these soaps says, "I feel that some things that are shown in these shows are real or at least portrayed realistically. Some parts of the Gujarati culture are represented in a very accurate manner, however, a little bit of exaggeration and melodrama does creep in."

While on the other hand theatre artist Aditi Desai feels that these shows have a 'made up' quality to them. "People need to study the history of the state, the culture and the language. More research is needed."

Aditi also says that the portrayal of both men and women is often cliched, "Women are shown fighting and scheming while the men come across as insensitive. Can this be representative of any community or culture ?"

Author Kajal Oza feels that these shows are not based on adequate research. "Why are the women always fighting ? And there's so much of negativity and hatred among family members. This is not a fair portrayal of the Gujarati culture."

Media planner Geeta Sarin says, " I don't think anyone in real life behaves the way these people do in these shows. These serials don't portray Gujarati culture in a realistic or researched way."

Director Shobna Desai begs to differ and says, "In terms of clothes that our characters wear on screen, most women from affluent Gujarati families wear such clothes. Gujaratis are food lovers and always eat their meals together and that is something that is regularly seen in TV shows. At times, we also make our characters talk in a Gujarati accented Hindi to give it a realistic touch."

Interesting article...Thanks for sending.

Not being Gujarati, and having never been to Gujarat, I can't tell if the Gujarati element in these serials are realistic or not. But being an entertainment medium, one can't expect too much realism on TV.

What is not right is that they do not show anything that is totally wrong, or misrepresentative of Gujarati culture. Like the film Hum dil de chuke sanam. I remember when it came out, some people said Gujaratis do not celebrate karva chauth and that is a Punjabi thing.

Because Mombs and Hema do such a good job of translating Gujarati culture for us all, I assume Bandini at least is doing its job of portraying Gujju culture well.

RR's accent is unbeatable😊

Would like to see a Tamil family shown in a Hindi TV serial someday😆

Nice article Suks. Thanks.

Well....my 2cents....there are/were a lot of Gujju based TV dramas. I only have Zee TV so know of those that aired on it (teen bahuraniya, betiyaan etc.) I think Kyunki was too. But I was not impressed by any as they never showed real gujju perspective, hardly spoke any gujju words let alone sentences. 😕

And as Rasika points out, every show always has this karva chauth thing...which gujarati's don't practice. It does have a romantic theme to it so I can see why the shows want to adopt it. 😃

Bandini is the first drama that seems to have done quite a bit of research, has integrated so much gujju language and ways. Although I am sure most of this credit goes to RR since he has gujju background and integrates most of it himself. He is the only one that has the accent, style and all nicely done (other then Dharmeshji/Virat who is gujju in real life). 👏

Yes, the drama may seem a bit over done where families are shown fighting etc. But just like anything else (eg. age diff in marriage etc), it does happen sometimes. So, although majority of the families may not experience these sort of problems, some do and hence the depiction from that angle.

These dramas are not reality shows. Not showing you what typical families are like. They pick aspects of various families that they can build a story line on and give us something to entertain us with. To gain typical Gujju ways and cultural knowledge, one will have to find a documentary (not a drama)...maybe Duggu will give a bit from his study!! 😉