Kyunki all women are not vamps

Kyunki all women are not vamps
Manjari Sabharwal
[ Friday, June 23, 2006 08:40:30 pmTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

notice to Ektaa Kapoor seems to spell trouble for the 'K' soaps and the kind of 'ideal Indian women' that they are trying to portray.

The Madhya Pradesh State women's committee (SCW) is planning to send a court notice to Ektaa Kapoor, the lady behind all those 'K' serials.

Reason: they feel the serials portray women in a negative light. Although this is one debate that has already received enough attention, the fact that it keeps popping up every now and then, and this time in the light of an attack on the image of the bhartiya nari, makes it interesting.

But what does the janta feel? Do all those ostentatiously dressed women - Kamolika, Meera, Pallavi, Prerna - et al
actually defame the image of the ideal Indian woman?

While ace director like Kavita Chaudhary, who redefined the image of a woman with her serial Udaan, feels that it is a two-way process, homemaker Monica Vishnoi suggests that not just vamps, but even the protagonists in saas bahu serials are illusionary and depict women in the wrong light.

Says Monica Gupta, another homemaker, "Forget about the negative characters, even the so-called ideal women Tulsi and Prerna (Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kasautii Zindagi Kay, respectively) are giving all the wrong impressions.

Prerna looks the age of her daughter! It only makes all those women glued to these serials also want to look like her, instead of focussing on the ethics and sanskar they keep harping on. Tulsi, on the other hand, was shown shooting her own son. Now which mother would do that?"

26-year-old, Avi Lamba, who works with a private finance company and plans to get married soon, says, "All saas bahu serials should be immediately banned! I have seen men accusing their girlfriends of acting smart after watching such soaps!"Kavita Chaudhary, director and protagonist of the popular serial Udaan, floats an interesting suggestion here: "There are some directors who only want to make commercially viable serials, while there are others who genuinely work towards presenting social issues.

But films and serials are usually made as per public demand, so blaming them alone for tarnishing the image of the Indian woman will be wrong. If these serials have women playing negative roles, they also have characters like Mukti (Kasautii Zindagi Kay) who confidently fight all odds.

But yes, if a soap goes out of the way to put up an unrealistic image of a woman, then the director should be made to realise that there are alternative ways of increasing TRPs," she says.

Shalini Mathur, secretary, Suraksha (a Lucknow-based NGO working on issues of violence against women) says, "We conducted a research on 'Depiction of women in TV serials' based on data available between 1992 and 2002 and spoke to women from all walks of life, including directors like Neena Gupta, Kavita Chaudhary and Ajay Sinha.

And we concluded that all family serials are unrealistic and have nothing to do with society. With so much focus on expensive jewellery, saris and larger-than-life sets in these soaps, a desire for an extravagant lifestyle is all that it develops. These actually lead to tensions within the family."

Rajshree Dalmiya, a city-based social worker, gives a valuable piece of advice when she adds, "There is no point in trying to relate to such saas bahu soaps, for they are usually over dramatised. Just watch them, enjoy them and then forget about them." Point taken ma'am!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1674776, curpg-1.cms