let it trickle freely

‘Now what are you crying for?’ admonishes my daughter. I wish she hadn’t caught sight of that little tear trying to trickle down my cheek. It felt foolish.

But coming to think of it I am surprised at myself…

I cut corners, I reschedule appointments, I cut short phone calls, I stagger my washing/cleaning routine. I run in and out of rooms, I …….Monday to Thursday are my busiest blocks like in an executive’s weekly schedule.

Two TV serials (soaps) back to back are enough I realize, to direct life for a while. I do not know how I got hooked –or is it cabled-to these. It is not that I am impressionable or gullible. The engineering that goes behind each episode is all too obvious. Isn’t the business tycoon sick of donning the same shiny robe and pacing about alike in both-or more-serials? The schemer has his/her part all stenciled out for use in any serial. Three to four flashes on a face denote agony, distress or shock. You can define the underlying emotion yourself as the faces are equally stony in expression. Eight or more flashes say that the end of the episode is due any moment; the stop watch will say when. Same dawn, same music for same situation.. Cellphones have acquired significance in serials. Half the story depends on its shrill beep; it can make, postpone or precipitate an event or transform a non event into one. A character can suddenly be played by another actor, as it happened in the first of the two serials. Just when I was getting used to identify closely with the hero’s travails and his expressionless expressions thereof, bang came another one to substitute him-a no less expressionless substitute. Viewers’ agony at this turn would probably be more expressive than the new hero’s.

A recent report says that Tamil serials distort the image of the woman and influence the viewers. Women are portrayed as scheming, plotting and self promoting beings said the article. On the other hand are the near goddesses of Aquaguard purity. They can be relied on to neutralize the schemer’s eternal plots and be bland like boiled veggies.

Coincidences are the backbone of serials. Imagine the heroine’s best friend and the heroine’s sister in law both being conned by the same man-in a huge city like Mumbai. Court cases are more a one episode cry-n-laugh caricatures. Or a court case in which the right witness crops up at the decisive moment. Or when the story is at-one of its numerous-bleakest best-a coincidence saves it. And crises their raison d’etre. A recent newspaper article read ‘I am miserable, so I am’. It said that soaps influenced viewers into thinking that crises are essential to a happening life. The author, a psychiatrist gave the example of a patient who was advised to have not one but several boyfriends, in addition to her husband, to ward off boredom, and perhaps to invite crises. As most episodes end in critical situations, impressionable viewers would want their drab life to have some of those too. Think of it…our lives are so monochromatic, smooth and predictable. Meet a friend online/ in real after 4 months and after the initial happiness, there is nothing more to say…life is going on. yes, same for me too. What else? Wouldn’t it be thrilling to say ‘I had a brush with a crisis you know?’ Even before we exchange niceties, my two guests whom I am meeting after two years, say ‘please switch on the TV; it is serial time’. They feel serials reflect family life and family confusions-existant, wishful and remote. It is pleasure pure and simple to follow the story in its hundredth episode…no questions asked. Never mind that by then the story and the characters have undergone much weathering.

So, am I watching serials to make life’s smooth edges a little jagged? Was the tear that I shed for the lady in the sorry situation the expression of a repressed need for sentiments which would seem ridiculous in real life?

Watching soaps helps in other ways too. When my own future hangs like a suspenseful cloud, speculating on that of the battered hero’s provides relief. It is another thing that the story manages to get more complicated than I could ever imagine, but I can still hope that a timely phone call will mend cracked relationships or iron out a difference..In a serial the imaginary happily co exists with the real; so I can always think-until tomorrow-that the sudden crisis was perhaps only imaginary. On another plane, when the amicably started discussion with the husband takes a slightly ugly turn, thinking of yesterday’s episode and the possibilities for today acts as a deterrent. He can go on as much as he wants,I am firmly anchored elsewhere, in ‘no bruise land’. Or when I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night and am assaulted by self-doubts or worries, steering my thoughts towards the snubbed hero and the possibilities that tomorrow will bring him have proved helpful ploys to bring back peace of mind.
Human interest?
Most stories are too ‘cock-and-bull’ for sustained human interest. Perhaps doses of it here and there, if one is equipped with a microscope. But perhaps one thing I have learnt is the value of nuisance value in serials-and in real life. Were it not for the petty schemers and bigger wheeler dealers, what and who would bring out the virtuous glories of the hero/heroine? Carrying tales may be bad but isn’t the informer an important shaper of life-or so shows the serial? Also that super-refinement of character and super moral values are perhaps directly disproportionate to earthly success?
‘So much thought for such a useless subject!’ I can almost hear my daughter exclaim. I counter her squarely (of course in imagination): so what if I am a philosophical, intellectually superior soul? Can’t I take a break from Vedanta and indulge in less existential debates occasionally?
But –wait a minute! Like the serial which meanders aimlessly, I feel I am going in circles analyzing my serial viewing fad. Unlike the two guests who wholeheartedly, simply, take serial viewing seriously, my efforts are the wary ones of a snob. It is not as an executive’s schedule that I should treat serial viewing, but as a pure pleasure in itself. Perhaps I should first learn to let the tear trickle down openly…