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Since it is Women's day , I could not help thinking of the portrayal of women in our favorite serial PR and I came to the conclusion that this serial is incredibly chauvinistic and displays women as second class citizens , taking refuge behind the WE ARE CATERING TO INDIAN MENTALITY excuse .
We criticised the men of this show as wimps but it is the wimps that are given importance in this serial , not the women . The tussle in this show never was between Manju and Achana as we read it mistakenly from the beginning . It was between Vinod and Archana , and about seeing who Sulochana finally picks . True to Indian mentality she picks the son . For keeping the son's marraige intact , she welcomes the man who sent her daughter to a brothel so that her pregnant bahu doesn't take offence and keeps her son happy . It is Sulochnas way of keeping her sons marraige intact .
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She sides with her bahu's evil maayka people over her daughter's sasural as it is her calculation that the daughter 's marraige is literally over but her son will look after her for LIFE.
So all hated Sulochana .Natural reaction , but I wish to point out that its NOT Sulochana alone . It is the same even at her bahu Manju's maayka........Rasika puts Ajit ahead of Manju's marital life and constantly expects Manju to deliver by covering up for Ajit even at the cost of manju's marraige being broken up .
Actually in the Manju Ajit jodi , Manju is the good child . She is married , stable , does a steady job , and always runs to fulfil maayka responsibility . She is the obedient one who follows her mother without questions . Ajit on the other hand does no job except squander money , visits brothels and drinks, hobnobs with undesirable people , gets into wild scrapes and brings dishonour to the family and each time Manju pulls him out . But Rasika does not love Manju more than Ajit . In fact it is the other way around .......Rasika uses her motherly influence on Manju to use her to get Ajit out of scrapes by hook or by crook , sometimes even at the cost of Manju's marraige almost breaking up . Manju blindly believes her mom but doesn't have the sensitivity or intelligence to realize that it is always Ajit that she looks out for .
Varsha and Vinod contribute equally to household expenses by doing a job , and Archana compensates by doing manual labour like cooking , keeping house clean , helping in every household activity . Actually although Vinod contributes , his contribution is less as there are 3 people on his side for whom he pays........himself , Manju [ who doesn't pay a penny from her personal salary] and Punni . Varsha on the other hand is alone . Yet the house runs majorly on this contribution after Manohar;s retirement although recently they showed Varsha taking a break . Vinod has already received his share in the family jewels ........the jewellery that Manju got as a bahu from the Karanjkar family . Yet the daughters of the house sell their jewellery to give him money to buy a flat not for necessity , but purely investment purposes , and stand themselves defrauded of their share while the parents Manohar and sulochana look on with approval ..........why ? As the son should NEVER leave the apron strings of his mother and stay there only . We hear the dialogue from Archana's mouth to Manju in their bitterest fight ........
This is your sasural . I will stay in my sasural which is my home.
May I ask why it is assumed in PR that the house will one day belong only to Vinod when the contribution of his sisters equals his and is perhaps far greater ? When his sisters are legally equally entitled to their monetary share in the house if their father dies ?
Let us go to the great sasural that Archana claimed was her home . We frankly do not see her having any rights there whatsoever . She is often pushed out , allowed entry or stepping in only if she agrees to atrocious conditions . cannot call a thing her own in that house , is given no pocket money by her husband who gives the whole pay packet to his mother who counts even the simple pav bhaji meals that she once had outside , and is many a times given extension to stay there only if dowry demands are met { the first15 days .]
Even when she comes there with a court order we see her being manhandled , pushed , threatened , verbally abused as a beggar , allowed to sleep on the kitchen floor and strictly warned to eat leftover food in the kitchen only .
If the maternal home belongs to the brother and the husband's home to his parents , then which home belongs to the 26 year old woman who gets married to start a life ? What is it then , that she can really call her own ? For the husband like Manav who worships his tyrant mom gives strict unspoken instructions that in this house , Mom will be boss . Then what about Archana the wife ?
No share in the maternal home and no share in the marital home is the plight of woman as depicted by Archana . She is 27 but has nothing to call her own . No property , no alimony or monthly expenses from Manav , her legal stri dhan [ her jewels from maayka ] sold to pamper a brother , and she has to be grateful for a simple hundred rupee note given to her as shagun by her humanatarian sasur while her husband simply looks on ..........as the hundred rupees it seems have sentimental value and shud NOT be quantified .
There is a way suggested in PR through which Archana the woman can indeed become a claimant to her sasural home . By producing a child and increasing her value like a cow who yields milk after giving birth to a calf . Manju , Shravani strut around likke home owners coz they have delivered babies and are gonna deliver one very soon in future . Their jobs as the carriers of the blood lineage gives them some perks .....Which foolish Archna , who is a virgin , does not earn .
Her virginity is a necessary condition for marraige and insisted upon by her mother in law till Satyanarayan pooja . Her pregnancy or lack of it is the cause of her value deterioration by the same mother in law and even her husband . So Archana has to cater to various physical conditions set by her sasural people.........the state of virginity and at the appropriate time , the state of pregnancy . If both are NOT balanced delicately and intelligently , she has NO VALUE.
By now it is clear as water ..........if Archana had been pregnant , this same Manav would have screamed in court that I AM NOT READY TO DIVORCE HER.
The most popular critcism flung at Shravani is that she is ' SHAMELESS" . Why , I asked and I got the answer
She forgot Sachin so soon
She had sex before marraige
She decided not to abort baby but bring it in society and cause stress to others
I look at this from a woman's perspective . At least Sachin is really dead and gone , Archana is very much alive yet Manav is trying to forget her and remarry to filfil HIS concept of responsibilities . It has to be noted here that it is a debatable issue in the first place if indeed it is remotely Manav's responsibility , who the bloody hell told him to make it HIS .
A woman having sex before marraige is a veritable sin and Shocker , but a man doing it is merely frowned down upon or smiled indulgently upon saying Boys will be Boys ..........see the way Ajit frequents brothels .........he is actually in danger of contracting the claps . Schin has gone scot free with his death ........we do NOt see anyone saying how gravely he was wrong to be so fast before marraige .
Why cannot we excuse Shravani by saying sex between two adults is entirely their prerogative ? Why call her 'shameless'? She fully intended to marry him and had not dreamt he wud die .
Why is aborting a baby always the sensible option ? If a woman decides to bring the baby in the world why cant that be honoured on an equal footing with the abortion.............simply saying ok , its her Decision ? Abort or not abort is ENTIRELY the woman's decision , even more so than the man's coz it is her body that bears danger to her LIFE. If Shravani decides to preserve LIFE in the form of that baby ..........a humane action if one sees it , uncaring for society , she is SHAMELESS .
The baby my dears is neither legitimate nor illegitimate .It is most primarily A LIFE , but obviously righteous minded society is to be appeased first or the woman is SHAMELESS.
It is the word Shameless that I object to . Somehow I do not find it applied to MEN . It is a very woman oriented Gaali .
Controversial though she may be , Sulochna gave two tools to Archu , albeit late in her life . She allowed her to do job , and study in a nightschool . Archana gave it all up .........why ? As she wanted to give her hundred percent in her 3 month stay at her sasural .
Why ? If a woman does all her work and yet manages job or studies further why is it regarded as 50% ? Why is it a 100%only if she stays at home and takes pride in menial jobs the whole day ? I do not say housewives r useless here . They contribute perhaps even more than working women . What I am saying is , why is the hundred percent quantified only this way ...........that if she stays at home and endures abuse she is giving her marraige a hundred percent ? Any reason?
On what basis does Archu offer to help Vandita ? The tools that help any woman to fight for justice......... Education and money , both have been thrown away by her . The same jewellery that she sold to give money to Vinod uncessarily to pamper a whim , she could have sold now to find her sister in law Vandu to find a good lawyer ........not coz Vandu is from her sasural but as a woman helping another woman and really understanding what RAPE is . But Archana doesnt have it . The other tool , Education , she threw away just like that . The job , though not particularly brilliant and just fetched 4500 rupees nevertheless made her somewhat financially independent . All these tools she thre away and all she does is EMPTY TALK .
A lady who cannot uphold her own basic self respect in her own sasural , what will she help another girl to uphold her self respect ? First archna should understand what the value of self respect means before rushing to Vandu's aid , as many a times it has been suggested in this serial that for Archana self respect means nothing UNCONDITIONAL LOVE , a higher value means EVERYTHING .
Really ? And Unconditional love of a woman I suppose is tolerating endless abuse , watching bigamy , defending her husband's bigamy and getting pushed by his fiancee ?
The training of nconditional love .......the Shakkar philosophy is given to Varsha by Archana the elder sister in this serial and we actually see Varsha acting on it by keeping quiet on her engagement day inspite of Bhavna her mother in law throwing a big , uncalled for tantrum for sheer ego , saying we r enitled to it as we are the BOY'S PARTY . We see Varsha keeping quiet and seeing her sister leaving her engagement instead of getting up and throwing the ring saying Sorry I JUST DON"T FEEL LIKE IT ANYMORE when her sasur and father say lets commence with the engagement as if nothing happened . We see her telling Satish with tears in her eyes.
Your mother made me helpless today .
Matrimony is a state of life one must enter to strengthen one's life . Not to render us women weak through helplessness . But marraiges in PR seem to make all women helpless toys of fate ........Sulochna , who helplessly welcomes Ajit , Archna who helplessly endorses bigamy , Varsha who helplessly remains mute for sake of parents izzat . Her mother in law , funnily enough , had no problems with the izzat issue when she decided to throw a public tantrum.
And so the primary message of PAVITRA RISHTA is that unconditional love is only possible when self respect is thrown away . Self respect in PR is equated with ego that destroys a marraige . We do not see a single situation in which a woman has a succesful marraige , battles problems outside and within with her self respect INTACT .
And so , on WOMEN'S DAY from my end , PR gets a big đđźfrom me .
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