Friday, October 22, 2010

TV-ation Gap.




From gaudy make-up to fashion faux pas,
Predictable story-lines to jarring music scores,
Flabby protagonists to hideous looking heroes,
High voltage melodrama to migraine-provoking twists and turns!



Like brain washing of the third degree, these Works of supposed CREATIVITY have been hammered into my brains till there was room for little else. I did not choose, simply because there was no choice!

Welcome to My World! A world marked with permanent clashes. What may seem like a normal conversation may soon engulf into a full blown battle. Where there’s a diarrhea of words and constipation of topics for discussion. The focus of our banter begins and ends at the same point.

Alright, with no further ado, let me introduce to you the protagonist of my household drama…without whom life seems almost unimaginable, unthinkable and undreamed of. The nucleus of my house... The one and only, His Highness ‘LORD TV!’
There’s one particular question that just struck my mind… “Why do people sit and watch serials?” err…actually, “How do they manage to accomplish this indescribable feat?!” Well, on second thoughts, I guess my Grandmum will be at the forefront to answer this million dollar question. Personally, the influx of TV channels has been a ‘curse in disguise’. With a potpourri of channels to choose from, variety no longer seems to be the spice of my life. Forget the fact of grasping and understanding anything, TV has simply been an answer to my I-am-bored and I-have-nothing-else-to-do syndrome.

Right from my kid hood, my Grandmum has been living in with us. Well, with regards to issues relating to the TV, it’s been hard-hitting. It’s not once, that we haven’t fought for the remote. Each one of us lingers around until the commercial breaks, so that we can juggle between Sun TV and VH1. It’s almost like opium for the two of us.

Quite recently, while I was in one of my unexceptional I-don’t-know-what-to-do moods, I decided to spend some ‘quality time’ with my Grandmum. Well, mind you, ‘quality time’ had got to be watching some stupid Tamil soap opera with her. I wasn’t really keen on doing it, but well, I thought I’d take a shot at it anyway! Oh boy, it was a blunder! A big time blunder! What ensued surpassed even the wildest of my imaginations. Right from the start, I was knocked for a loop! Imagine, a 3 minute title song, showing the entire family singing and dancing in a garden while the camera zoomed in and zoomed out of their faces! Gosh! The family members weren’t even a tad good looking. So ogling at them was not even the last thing on my mind. Fortunately, I had missed around 752 episodes and I was more than confident that I would not understand a word. But to my despair, I did.

Five minutes into the serial coupled with my Grandmum’s nonstop running commentary in the background, I concluded that all these serials revolve around a structured storyline. Backstabbing; Mothers-in-law and Daughters-in-law arguing over featherbrained issues; Over-the-top violence, where at most times the *dishooom-dishooom* failed to co-ordinate with the hand and leg movements; Random pregnancies, generally lasting for over 9 months- well, the story lines are implausibly predictable. If a woman vomits, she is ought to be pregnant. If they focus too much on people traveling in a car and being saccharine sweet to one another, a fatal accident is just two episodes away. If two people are happily married, it’s understood that a courtroom scene zooming in on their divorce is just about 75 episodes away. Oh yes, the serials are peppered with casual scenes of stray characters vigorously popping pills into their mouths from a bottle which is clearly labeled as ‘POISON’(in case the viewer gets confused).

However, these serials which are anchored to melodrama and fuelled by kooky twists and turns are thoroughgoing entertainers. They do tend to get on to your nerves very often, and at times, coerce you to wonder whether we, as audience members are at our ‘Progressive Worst’ or ‘Regressive Best’?!

But, on the personal front, though I cringe to see these brain-destroyers on a daily basis; I do experience this peculiar sense of blitheness when I see the glow on my Grandmum’s face, the minute the clock strikes 9. It’s her only aperture to the outside world and, if four hours of absolute gobbledygook succeeds in giving her another four hours of food for thought, it isn’t a raw deal after all.
As they say, “If life gives you lemons, make a lemonade out of it” – likewise, even

I, being a victim of circumstances, have learnt to cachinnate and poke fun at these otherwise stereotypical, tear-provoking serials. Trust me, it isn’t that hard!

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When my socks don't stink, my feet are in my mouth.

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