In-Your-Face-But-So-Rarely-Observed-Facts From Hindi Television Serials: My observation on few elements of serials that are so often taken for granted, always.

There is a lot of excitement in the wonderful world of television. So much adventure, so many stories, so many colors and so many dramatic moments; what a journey it is in the world of television.

But other than a few very much observable things such as saas-bahu fights, devrani-jethani rivalries, when there is no twist left then killing off one of the central characters, and all. I'm talking of lesser-observed-taken-for-granted stuff.



Here are a few that I find really exciting:

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How is it that when there is a 10-15 year leap in a show, characters change or well their looks do; but their city always remains same. Why do the cities never change in 10yrs?? Take for example the recent leap I have observed in the show 'pavitra rishta' on Zee TV. The show has just shown a huge leap, I guess between 18-20yrs. So if before the leap the show, that is set in mumbai, showed the city as the year 2011 after the leap the show's time stream should be 2021. But no nothing has changed. Entire look and feel of the city is just the same.

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How easy it is on a show to either come back from dead or to find a 'judwa/ humsakal' i.e. a doppelganger. Especially In two situations;
A) When the vamp in the show is planning to get rid of d good bahu/beta of the family, by replacing them with their own puppet.
B) When the good bahu/ beta have died in an accident and suddenly voila! They are back. But behold is it really them??

Oh! And not just that, also I have rarely seen two ‘judwa’ (twin) siblings growing up together in the same house. The second one is always brought into the plot when the plot is lacking enough masala courtesy the vamps and villains.

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Another situation that gives me an LOL moment is that in almost every show, one crorepati family will definitely be going bankrupt and moving out of their mansion into a chawl. Because it’s so easy to go bankrupt on a show, all the time, esp. since all the men do in these shows are show involvement in either kitchen politics or romance.

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Oh! What is with the people who are supposed to represent middle class society, how do they get their hands on wearing different clothes everyday? I mean that. One day one dress, no repetitions. Wish I had a wardrobe so huge. Also when the previously rich family members move to a chawl, how come they still have such rich clothes to don, when at the time of their arrival they came empty handed. Alas! Hail the servant.....wait a second didn't they got fired already??

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And well my favorite out of all, the sisters who get married in same family to brothers, 4 out of 5 times elder sister will get married to the younger brother and younger one will be getting married to the elder brother.

And well 4 out of 4 times those sisters are bound to have conflict that would break their bond momentarily. And well 3 out of 4 times that series of conflict will begin when the elder sister is asked to touch her younger sister's feet as in the new family younger one is the elder, as per the Indian traditions. Well you can get so much of drama out of one formula itself.

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In almost 8 out of 10, the vamps of the show are the lalchi mammi’s or taiji’s (greedy aunts) or the insecure nand or devrani or jaithani of the central character (which I’m very causally assuming to be a female in all cases because that is how it is always.) Evil begins at home. Home is where all the politics of one’s life always lie.

P.S. over here I really should have said 10 out 10, but my terribly-shattered-but-undying faith in the changing face of Indian soap operas stopped me for a bit.

Well these are just few so-often-there-but-so-rarely-observed-facts from Indian television serials. Will keep adding to the list.