Indian telenovelas and my love hate relationship with them

“I waited for you like one waits for the sun after a deep dark night. Oh! I waited in vain!” Like an artist in love with its muse, I have waited for something amazing to happen. Something that will sweep me off my feet! Yes, I am talking about love, my love for telenovelas.

Indian television scene has gone down the drain. Punto.

This realization does not help me fill the empty spaces in my heart. I still crave for a good story, a great plot, real life like characters that would transport me to a different land of possibilities. ‘Hopeless millennial’, you say. I say, ‘hell ya!’

Series like Sherlock Holmes, Agent Carter, Los Misterios de Laura, Castle, The Mentalist, 13 Reasons Why have blown my mind. These shows are all fantastic, larger than life and no-where close to reality in terms of action but the emotions shown in each of them are very human. Each character brings us closer to the untouched parts of ourselves creating a parallel reality in our lives. So much so that the next time your brother is lying about a party he went too, you can’t help but use your super powers to check the details of his appearance and black mail him!

Indian television, at this moment is brutally killing all imagination. Every story starts with a girl and a boy. (If you are looking for a boy and boy story, come back after 20 years.) Some of them also have a girl actually doing something, like she has a job or plays a sport. Somehow, the plot is such that for the girl to continue living her dreams, she has to get married. Because shaadi to karni padegi…warna samaaj kya kahega?

So, either the girl and the boy fall in love and get married or mostly they get married and then try to fall in love. This falling in love will take roughly from a year to two (meaning actual calendar years), within which their sexual lives will be a hush hush. Then, one of them will start liking the other but not express the love. Because? Because the producer said so! The most cringe worthy scenes are when the girl and the boy, now husband and wife are trying to be physical. I used to dig myself deep in the bed if with parents or shut the television. I would rather watch, people having sex in Spanish films than these guys attempting to make love.

If, by any stroke of luck, these two do fall in love, then we have the saas, nanad, uncle, aunty, taya, tai, and so on so forth who are constantly making decisions for them and making their lives a living wreck. In this whole chaos, the girl’s dream has either taken a back side (meaning the writer conveniently forgot it). Or like Sandhya Rathi, she manages to balance her beauty, her bahuness and her motherhood with the ease of superwoman and wonder woman combined.

By now the serial has completed five years. The couple have had two children, got separated and come back together. There is already a part ex from the husband’s side, who lingers around the family boundaries. People have died or changed faces and I am constantly wondering out loud, ‘ye kya tha?’ Because? Because the script writer became gajni!

Why can’t we have good scripts taking screen space in our country? Scripts that talk about other realities, with real people who have real problems? Missing the good ol’days of Filmi Chakkar, Tu Tu Mein Mein, Hadd Kardi, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Tara and much more!

Bhagwan ke naam pe ek acha series bana do?