Posted:
Hello, remember me? 😆
I know it's been a while since I posted, but trust me, I have been keeping up with all of the happenings on and around the show. It has been an overwhelming few weeks, and despite all the negative feedback from the audience and the actors themselves, I am really impressed with the tenacity of the show's creators in sticking to their concept. Most of all, I appreciate that they are willing to push the envelope and make the audience uncomfortable, and even outraged, in order to get theri point across. I wanted to make this post as a sort of meta-analysis of the show in the context of Indian TV. I hope it makes some sense.
As I have said before, I don't believe the role of fiction is necessarily didactic. It doesn't have to telling us literally what the lesson is, in order to teach the audience, or cause us to think about the reality of certain situations. The criticisms I see for this show, the direct admonishment of the characters, reminds me a lot of the controversey surrounding Utda Punjab. The censor board argued that the film showed India in a bad light and glorified drug use. The same questions were asked, "what are we teaching our people?" The counter argument, of course was, if the problem exists in our society, isn't it necessary to make our people aware of it? Only when we understand the problem in an empathetic, non-judgmental way, can we start to work towards real, sustainable solutions.
That is what I see this show doing. It is presenting the problem in a way where none of the characters are heroes or villains, there are no absolute victories or losses, and individual battles for happiness and peace of mind take many forms and have complex ripple effects on other characters. We may not go to bed every night with the satisfaction of good winning over evil, because the show doesn't guarantee that outcome, but neither does real life. In this equation between mother, son, and daughter-in-law, set within a traditional structure, oftentimes it takes years for the DIL to make any headway in the family, if ever she gains an advantage at all! So it's not a question of Dev simply discovering his mother's issues and solving them, or standing against her for his wife, though that would give us instant gratification. The show is about people living with complex realities, and dealing with them as they manifest every single day.
The difficulty in this for us as audience is shelving our notions of absolute right and wrong, good and evil, and looking at the characters with empathy. That is not to say their actions are not right/wrong in any given time... that is simply not the point. Judging something as right or wrong, makes us feel good about our own moral compass, but there is no personal/intellectual growth in that. When there is no clear demarcation of good and evil, when evil sometimes wins, we are forced to think outside of our worldview and question ourselves. Only in that questioning is there openness to hear other points of view, and therefore a foundation for productive discussion between opposing ideas. KRPKAB gives those of us who have not grown up embedded in a traditional, patriarchal system, that ability to get into the minds of women who have. But only if we allow our minds to go beyond passing judgment over right and wrong, and understand that right and wrong look very different from different vantage points. If we have the idea of an ideal mother in the back of our minds, then Ishwari will come out very short, but if we try to challenge that embedded idea, what if mothers aren't innately selfless and kind? Then we begin to open our minds to new possibilities.
And that brings me to the title of this post: the reason I believe the usual saas-bahu shows do so well, and how KRPAKB can help us understand it. One reason is that those shows hit you over the head with everything, and there is no work for the audience to do. The heroine, vamp, MIL are clearly demarcated by music, makeup and clothing, and they articulate their every intention either through soliloquies or over exaggerated expressions. But second, and more relevant to this post, a majority of women relate to this story of MIL-DIL conflict, which is why it continues to be told. In recent times, it has received a bit of a makeover: now the saas and bahu fight together to make sure the "vamp" -- usually a sexually liberated woman who wears western clothes -- doesn't get to be with the hero. But it's all the same at the core: women fighting for favour with men, resisting change, and perpetuating and protecting the existing family structure.
Those of us who have had more or less education in feminist thought may well question why this is. Why do women seek to perpetuate a system that so clearly disadvantages them? Of course, we can't presume to know in totality, but KRPKAB's takes one clear stance on this question: fear. Stepping out into new territory is always a risk, and even if the long-term benefits are there, it is not easy to be the one to break out of the status quo. People label you as naive, idealistic at best, if not arrogant, ungrateful and irrational. In addition, surviving in a new, equality-based system requires certain tools -- education, financial independence, and self-esteem, things that women are systematically deprived of in our current society, and I don't just mean in India.
That is why we see a Neha, unhappy with the way things are, but without the tools to change them. She has been taught that marriage is the only path to happiness for an adult woman and she is bitter that the system she worked so hard for refuses to give her anything in return. That's why we have a Radharani, whose husband prefers his sister and her son to his own wife and his own son, refusing to acknowledge his role in their family. And that is why we have an Ishwari -- a woman who did everything right, for whom the system worked just as it was supposed to, until Sonakshi came into their lives. And that is why we have a Sonakshi, an outsider to this system, who is the progressive woman's bridge to this unknown world, where things work in a very specific and very convoluted way. The difference between this show and normal TV soaps, is that those shows assume their audience understand certain things where this show helps us access and unpack those concepts.
As Shaheer pointed out in a recent interview, it is a trend in our soaps that the husband is shown as clueless, without an opinion, not understanding any of the issues at hand. He understood fine as a boyfriend, but suddenly became dumb as a husband? All of this is true, and baffling to those who don't know how patriarchal joint families work, but totally makes sense to the women who run those households. For them (and I speak from experience of my own extended family), men are only good for earning money and that is all they are expected to do. All of the management, the allocation, and savings is handled by the women of the family. In this equation, it becomes a matter of which woman is most trusted by the earning man of the household. In order to command that respect, you have to shelve your own emotions, your humanity and think only for the material benefit of the family. Moreover, it is a constant battle to retain this position because in this system, women are dispensible while men are not; that is why a new bahu poses such a threat. Ishwari epitomises this woman and raised Dev to be such a man... all of that began to change with the advent of Sonakshi.
I am constantly perplexed by the question of how Dev can be so oblivious in the household when he is such a sharp businessman. Aren't they two completely different skill-sets? The very traits that make Dev so good at business -- quick decision-making, assertiveness, solution-orientedness, and unwavering focus -- are precisely what trip him up when it comes to dealing with his family, and therin lies the problem for so many men. They are not equipped with the skills required to negotiate emotions and feelings, and on top of that, are taught to believe that these things just work themselves out, while the women work hard to manage relationships in the background. And it is easier to understand your role when you are a boyfriend, in the capacity that Dev was, because there is so much less work. The couple meet outside both of their houses, in a space all unto their own. With marriage, their relationship enters the larger structures of family and household in which it has to be managed. Women are taught from day one that this will happen, and are encouraged to be accomodating and patient. Men are not given this guidance or the tools they need.
Sonakshi, and Dev by proxy, are bringing into this very conservative setup, a new way of thinking and operating, one that many of us on the forum take for granted as natural and right. But if this post made any sense at all, take a moment to think about WHY you take Sona's worldview for granted. How did your parents/teachers/guides help you understand your rights and your self-worth? Look at the TRPs are understand that you are in a very small, very privileged minority who experiences the world a little bit closer to what it should be, and therefore are able to relate to Sona. Because as the title of this post indicates, misery loves company. For every Sona, who is trying to demand her rights and proactively seek out happiness and equality, there are Ishwaris, Nehas and GKBs galore, who are trying to tear her down because she makes them feel inadequate. They would much sooner relate to someone as miserable and helpless as them.
Sona's victory in the battle for equality is not a given, just as women's equality is not a forgone conclusion. It's a fight that has to be fought every day, and I applaud the writers for yanking our rose tinted glasses off, and showing marriage for what it can be. Honestly, I see the apprehension about marriage this show has created as a positive thing. Let's all be more educated as a society about what marriage might entail, so we can make informed decisions about our lives, instead of expecting fairytales from the institution of marriage. Let's look at the women in our lives who are less like Sona and more like Ishwari, GKB, and Neha with empathy rather than judgment. How did they become that way, and how can we begin to understand their condition so we can give them the tools they need to seek out their own peace of mind?
I know this became super-long and lecture-y, but I really believe this show is doing something important, outside of the usual, in-your-face, didactic mould that Indian popular fiction has followed since time immemorial. I just hope we can recognise that and appreciate the observations, however uncomfortable, that the show is trying to make.
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