Can we take....

Indian satellite television sure is noisy. Tulsi (dhad-dhad-dhad)… tu baa jaisi kab banegi? Kumkum tu bach kaise gayee (dha-daak dha-daak), Kripa (clang-clang) tu singer ban hi gayee, Jassi… (dhishaynk-dhishaynk-zing-zing) — damn, you slept so recklessly that it had to spoil your own wedding! Excuses, so many, for all that unbearable canned sound effects, at every other close-up scene (which is a series of rotations, anyway). Hey, Yamraaj, TV serials can now wake up the dead even with a tiny sample of that background music.

Forget the noise, all that extra production on television has already started dramatising our everyday lives. It's gimmick over content, and now so easy to bring a part of the K-naatak into our living rooms.

Our drawing rooms were always a warm, central place to be in after a really hard day, until the chatpati (to use drawing room language) saas-bahus started invading our space. We suddenly started identifying with these peace assassins, as if the years gone by with all their precious moments were so damn rookha-sookha. Thanks to the small screen legends, our living rooms have undergone a mega makeover.

Picture a typically big Indian gharaana and you can now see its members gathering around their smallish drawing rooms; all seated (preferably standing as if they were posing for album pictures) together on the sofas in chic attire, discussing the good ol' saas and bitching about the really bad bahus or the other way round. Kitty parties have taken on a new meaning. We see a lot more expression on those designer faces (all of whom incidentally seem to use the same makeup man) than ever before.

Family quarrels are now Oscar material — thanks to the Oms and the Mihirs, pissed off family members get to make grander entries and even better openings to burn up some high voltage atthani-chhaap dialoguebaazi. Big, business families —hah! Serious, feet-touching types stylishly heading for the office in their Armanis and bandhgalas, not to forget their pot bellies and the notorious peek-daan (a container that collects business class gutka juice) failing to disappear. Real-life upmarket (read: vulgarly rich) parties are now buzzing with many Tulsis, Parvatis, Kamalikas and Kashishs.

You can even have an impromptu Spot-the-Tulsi competition in these places and there would be some really stiff competition. Mobile phones! Heck, we are all upgrading, so why are we complaining? Dress designers are having a field day. Party managers are making hay while the sun is scorching the common man who also gets his serial dose each night, but all he can do is be amazed. Winners some, losers many. Mostly us.

By now, most of us bitten by the telebug are already familiar with the characters who assault our living rooms each night. We are also left gasping each week night for an extended dose of whatever tease that's been left behind. We know it's all excreta, but yet we look forward earnestly. So overjoyed we are.

We get to sleep unsatisfied, and next day it's booming all over again. Some who have seemingly wisened, criticise Tulsi and her jaat delectably, but are also seen immersed in the kahaanis each and every day. They can't live without it now — how can they? There's so much to bitch about, there's so much to bear…so much to freak out on, so much to emulate! Dhad… dhad…dhad (or the sound of lightning, if your prefer). Back to square one.

Hindi TV serials, oh God! They're good all right, they've got to be— how else do they gather all that TRP? (KBC anyone?) But they are now so hollow and so unnecessarily gimmicky that if you really think about it, so much air time is being wasted orchestrating the episodes with trash noise, songs, extensive weeping, long bouts of continuous staring and glaring and contorted looking and, of course, some heavily exaggerated and ring-a-ring-a-roses camerawork. Check out the lens that just has to focus at one shocked face at a time for many costly and crucial seconds. All the time. Sumit's 'mar gaya' expressions, Armaan's 'marta kyon nahin' deadpan stare, Mallika's bitchy outlook — stuff that makes legends! Not to forget Maddy's freakish pullback and Nandu's edgy eyebrow shaking that has the gorgeous Jassi all enamoured in a conveniently friendly way.

Useless gimmickry is the order of the day and it's working in a rather strange way. Oh, yes, how can we forget your faces, equally agonised, some reeking in tears as you watch the distress unfold. The cause and the effect. Dha-daam! What was that? Oh, that was Bajaj slipping on the bathroom floor. We are truly hypnotised. Wake up, viewers…but to what?

It's the sign of the times, but who creates them? Remember Humlog, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and Karamchand? We are talking about the 80s and the kind of content that was there at the time. Could it all have bargained for such meaningless evolution? Karamchand's Karrot was more intelligible contentwise compared to Balaji's Kkahaniis all put together. Take a look at Jassi or Jessica for that matter — if this figment had been of an 80s' imagination, the image revamp would have never happened, for people generally didn't mind a thickly bespectacled woman like Jassi turning on someone like Armaan, who himself would have been a sideburn freak by today's standards. And now we hear Jassi's gonna don the braces and charm us once again.

Coming back to noise, most of us made fun of the highly animated dhishoom dhishoom sound in the movies back in the 70s and 80s; we were intelligent and sensitive, weren't we? Prerna…tumhaara bachcha! Dhad-dhad-dhad! Clap, clap. What's this? Wasn't that better? At least we saw the bad guys tasting blood. Wake up, viewers, we are bargaining content…but for what?

The unending scenario: serials and scenes that go on and on, borrowing bitches from Mumbai's high society districts, sluts from America's famous infidelity-oriented soaps and dirty dogs from every downtrodden story under the sun. They all need canned noise now to punch up the spicy mix and they bring it on in style.

Listen up, viewers…bang, boom, thunk! With so much competition, forget the Indian awards committees, even the Grammys could add up another category. Best Indian TV trash sound. Who would be the winner? Can we take a poll? Parade the sound technicians…each one of them.