Warning : The following text may offend egoistic men. You are therefore warned not to continue reading any further if you are part of the category.

Ironically, this is not just about men, this is about women too. As another friend of mine says, Indian women have come a long long way but men are still stuck way behind. Well yes, we have come along way, we take our own decisions, and we go wherever we want, we don’t need body guards with us everywhere we go, and most importantly, we wear what we want to. Some of us live in perfectly sheltered protected cocooned lives, and have never really had to see two sides of a coin before having to pick the one that we have been brought up to believe is sinful. This might not make any sense to you, if you belong to that genre of women. Personally, I have never had problems being the way I want to, but it pains me to see the happenings around me.

Let’s take a look at how Indian soaps add to this panorama. Start with a ridiculously choreographed title song. The protagonist of any soap is ALWAYS a woman. And therefore it is a reason to celebrate, apparently. Yay woman power! Think again.

It’s always about a nice, lovable, angelic woman, with no faults whatsoever. (Now there are exceptions, I’m not denying that. But on a general basis, this is an observation from the very many stereotypes.) Add to the title song some even more ridiculous music, that is to be the signature tune of the soap, and played a million times in the 20 minutes that it runs for four times a week.

Now, there’s a woman, she’s the heroin of the whole thing. She’s immensely intelligent, holds the best degree from the best college and was the smartest kid at school. Her parents are very proud of their baby girl. Then, she gets married. If it is against her wishes, she sacrifices for her family, and agrees to get married. If she’s not already in love with some random guy (who always turns out to be the villain later), she happily marries wherever her parents / elder brother / aunts and uncles marry her off.

Now starts a whole new story. She is seen wearing ONLY sarees, or salwars, as the case may be. If she wears western clothes, she has to be the bad woman. The good woman never wears anything but sarees. She gives up her career and sits at home to serve her husband. Now this husband of hers is a total duffer. He has no idea of his life, he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing, earns nothing, and quite expectedly, is in love with another woman (who will turn out to be the villain later) but got married because he was forced to.

So he stays away from his new bride, doesn’t talk to her, treats her like crap, goes about being a stubborn bum throwing things at her face. Now she, is an ideal angelic woman. she therefore listens to him calmly, never ever retaliates, bears all his abuse, and as is supposed to be, takes an oath to change him through her love for him (does she even know him?). She helplessly cries every time he storms into the house, says a bunch of harsh words at her face, sometimes even slaps her, and walks away. She sits and cries, and surprisingly, none of her painted make up runs. She lives with the hope that – “one day, he will come to me. One day my husband will be mine” (my husband will be mine?)

At the end of 300 episodes, the story is still along the same lines, and she has almost achieved her goal of having her husband realize she exists. Let’s not forget –

Enter evil mother in law. “you useless woman. my house is still dirty. How dare you sit around doing nothing? Why is there one pea less on my plate? Don’t you know how I like my peas perfectly counted?”
Watching in the background – useless husband. “ How dare you treat my mother like that? How dare you not count her peas properly and then serve her? You are not fit to be my wife. *points finger, yells like a bull and glares at her* Get out of my house this instant! “

And so he throws her out of his house. Poor woman doesn’t know what to do, she cries and cries and cries, begs and pleads, but is thrown out nevertheless. So she sits outside the house, helplessly strewn across the floor and sobs. So why doesn’t she go to her parents’ house? Why doesn’t she chuck this loser and his family out of her life and move on? Because Indian women don’t do that. They bear everything. Victory in the end has to be theirs, through pious love. Therefore all the stupid drama in between is perfectly acceptable. If she comes away, she will put her parents to shame in society. Plus, she doesn’t have a bank account remember? So what does she do? She can’t even take care of herself!

The main point here, is that these soaps are watched by people all over the country, and NRIs sitting around the world. The fact that everyone enjoys them so much, and that very few people find something wrong with them, is most disturbing. Men are given license to behave a certain way. A friend said – blame the movies. I’d say, blame the soaps. So because those actors are doing it, it is automatically assumed that they are allowed to behave that way. Worst of all, they expect their future wives to be like those ultra sacrificing women. To be angelic, to never answer back and listen to all his bull, cook for him, press his feet, basically, treat him and his family like 2 year olds and never utter a word of complain. Women on the other hand, are big big fans of these soaps too. We learn that we should tolerate everything that’s thrown at us, stick to our husbands even if they are the biggest fools on the planet, (it’s not our fault they are our husband right? We didn’t pick them!), be angelic, learn to live in utter poverty and be happy, and most importantly, never work. And oh, have babies within a year of marriage too. And there is nothing wrong with this? Is it just me?

What’s more, mothers who watch these soaps expect their kids to be like that too. If she has a son, he need worry about nothing in life. Absolutely nothing. If she has a daughter, oh her life is hell. She is lectured on how she should be, the things she should do and not do, every single day. If she chooses to protest, she is given the – ‘you are a girl, you have to do these things. If you don’t you’ll never be happy in life, your husband will never accept you’ talk.

Don’t write your own disasters ladies. Change the way things work. And gentlemen, for your own good, stop watching Indian soaps and falling in love with those idealistic women. Erase that imagery from your heads for your own sake. Most importantly, stop fooling yourselves by thinking you’ll make the wonderfully great husbands that these soaps do. They don’t.

Well people have told me that I will never get married, that I will never find a guy who won’t expect a soap out of me. If marriage means all the above mentioned things, I couldn’t be happier than without a man in my life.

Peace.