The Small Screen Phenomenon

Disclaimer: This piece is written in an overtly casual and light hearted fashion. Not meant to disrespect hundreds of lesser known artistes who make their living by plying their trade on the small screen. The only other section of the populace who may get offended, I feel, are housewives/homemakers whom I hold in the highest regard. I apologize beforehand, just in case they start resorting to pelting stones and hurling brickbats (Including esteemed and loved members of my own family). Again I reiterate this is written with the intent of being absorbed in the right spirit of good humour.
 

A lady in a bright red Saree seated in an Audi car reaches her destination’s end, a magnificent bungalow that is built on a foundation of tons of black money, near the beach around 30 miles from Chennai on the East Coast Road.  The living image of the watchman of the guesthouse even as he sights the rounding up of the car round the corner, metamorphosizes from an object of stupor into a gymnast who has just taken a strong dosage of performance enhancing drug prior to an Olympic event. As the car screeches to a halt, the watchman jerks into a fit of spasm and makes a near leap towards the car and opens the door and the lady in red alights. What follows is a picture of bourgeois servility that is not uncommon to be taken to the lowest common denominator in Tamilnadu. What I mean is a salute. The hand movement that has become almost a voluntary limb action, commanded by the grey cells of his Medulla Oblongata to move to the forehead to execute a salute followed by the words ‘Vanakkam Madam’.

Coming to the lady herself, the mere sight of her is calculated to send shivers down the spine of the average human being. She sports a dangerously long bright red Bindi and is adorned with jewels from top to bottom as we see models in jewellery ads. She whips up her phone and calls a local politician and delivers the execution order – ‘Avana mudichurunga’ (Translated as Finish him off) to which he replies ‘Ok madam. Namma pasangala vittu avana potu thalitu ungalukku phone panren’ (Ill tell my lads to do it and confirm you).

Hmm a common scene from a Tamil serial.

Now take a look at this. 

A tear jerking music plays in the background, a lower middle class old widowed lady is lying on a bed in hospital and is surrounded by her 2 daughters – A 24 year old married to a wicked treacherous guy and a 19-year old daughter who goes to college, and a couple of neighbours. The reason the setting of this scene is in the premises of a hospital is because, the old lady passed out after an ugly scene at her home. To further give a birds eye view to this rather unfortunate set of circumstances is the promise made by the old lady to pay Rs 10 Lac dowry to her first daughter’s husband at the time of her marriage within 2 years. What has happened in the interim I am unable to fathom and say.

Let’s say the events that are happening as I narrate was screened in Episode # 456 on 10^th of August, 2016 and the terrible oath taken by the old lady was in Episode # 221 on 29^th of November, 2015, the author is at a loss himself unfortunately not in a position to discern with certitude the exact nature of events that transpired in the massive expanse of time that has lapsed that led to the position where the lady is unable to pay off the dowry as promised. But thankfully we have the tool at disposal to retrieve the lost information, the walking encyclopedia of the small screens, the living Google of Tamil sitcoms – Grandmothers! All I need to say is ‘Patti, the last I saw the family was in a well of position, why is that they have landed up in abject poverty’. It takes 5 mins of innocent explanation from my granny to get the crux of whatever has lapsed in the interim 230 episodes, and I realize there has not been any palpable difference to the entire storyline at all!

Anyway back to the hospital, the scene is one of over drama and over acting, where the old lady who is back to her senses, laments there is no hope in life, God loves to see good people suffer and cries how she is going to get her younger daughter married. A couple of sympathetic neighbours donning the garb of living incarnations of Dale Carnegie start reeling out motivational dialogues to ease the apprehension, while cautioning if the brake on self applied stress is not applied, health issues will worsen leading to every penny being squeezed out of the doctor's stethoscope. Meanwhile the tone of the background score becomes even more melodramatic and the hues of melancholy pick up briskly trying its level best to infuse pathos in its audience. And it doesn’t fail. As I catch my grandmother sniffing despondently into her Saree and a tear pearl falls of her eye, I have no option to rebuke her to stop crying for God’s sake as its reel and not happening in real life! It is at times like my father who has been anti-serials all his life further rubs salt into the wounds of my grandmother by saying – ‘Amma! This is an insult to the intelligence. How many times have I told you to stop watching these pathetic serials? You are incorrigible’

Then there are happier moments. This is when you catch the feminine piece of the audience at its best. A girl who has been getting the bird from multiple prospective grooms finally breaking the shackles set by fate and ends up getting married, a long standing dispute between a mother and daughter in law getting finally resolved, or a son from a respectable family who fell into bad company after learning life lessons the hard way curls up like a lost lamb back into its herd and is welcomed back into the fold by a forgiving father. 

These are moments where the infectiousness of joy is palpable and what happens inside the TV screen catalyzes the environs of the home. I call them 'Capsules of Joy'. Typical housewives who spend a lifetime cursing their fate are temporarily given a new lease of life – their mood dramatically changes and dinner time arguments with spouses are turned into an affair of lovebirds, men on their part shocked by the sudden change resolve to make hay while the sun shines, unwilling to deep dive into the root cause for the inexplicable behavioural change in their better halves. Personally for me these are the ideal moments as an observing bystander, as I catch MOM-IN-LAW – DAUGHTER-IN-LAW interactions at their effervescent best. Conversations on the storyline suddenly change track and move as follows, translated from Tamil.

Grandmother: Such a beautiful saree Ramya (The female protagonist on the screen) is wearing. A deep turquoise blue saree with shades of maroon and magenta.

Mother: Exactly Amma, and look at that bright pink border! I’d die to get one such saree.

Grandmother (with yearning look in her eyes): Please buy me one Kanamma, will you?

Mother: Why not mother? Let us go for shopping this Saturday and buy sarees from Nalli, I heard there is a festive sale going on.

Meanwhile, the scene on the TV shifts to the main hall where Ramya being a dutiful daughter makes a cup of strong coffee for her father, who has just finished forgiving his son Saravanan after the latter apologized (as mentioned above) for going astray the last few weeks.

Mother: I wonder how their house is maintained so clean, all the time the women are either fighting or chatting

Grandmother: Yes Amma, I have always been wondering the same all the time!

To the neutral bystander ‘Love Feast’ is the word that springs to the mind.

But taking a backseat and trying to understand this further I dont really get to the bottom of why Indian sitcoms have ruled small television like the way they have. I need deeper contemplation to get to the root cause of it which i will unravel in due course of time. But it is a safe bet to say sitcoms have become inexplicably intertwined with the lives of Indian people. Good or bad they continue to exist with us and will continue to rule Indian middle class households for aeons to come.

For Men May come and Men may go, Tamil sitcoms, nay, Indian Sitcoms go on forever.

 - - To be continued - -

Waiting for the next episode of Thendral or Alaigal or whatever be the damn serial, I am going to get to see with grandma, when I go home next, and hopefully I can add a funny tale to these memoirs :)