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The sub-culture around serials

 Published in The Hindu Open Page

The sub-culture around serials

THOMAS PAUL

July 01, 2017 09:46 pm | Updated 09:46 pm IST ...

The TV serial is today a sub-culture that has us hooked. These serials, like movies, inhabit a unique ..


Blame the smart phones. Normal conversation within a family has declined and everyone has turned into a lonesome browsing netizen. This trend is countered, surprisingly, by television serials, which nowadays bring families together in front of TV sets, at least in the evenings. Consider the standard scene of a TV serial: an average of eight characters per scene, standing in a line, exchanging dialogues all day. Family members are talking to one another, showing us how conversation is alive and kicking in the household. The TV serial is today a sub-culture that has us hooked.

These serials, like movies, inhabit a unique world, and rules of logic do not always apply. Serials in the Hindi-speaking milieu are flashy, with characters clad 24x7 in their rainbow-hued wedding finery. Southern serials are a little more down to earth, but realism is still a long way off. Evil in-laws and unrelentingly vengeful kin are staple fare. Coincidences abound. No matter how large or densely populated a city is, the characters manage to run into one another. All their mobile phones have the same ring tone. Characters speak over their shoulders to people standing behind them. The supposedly employed men folk seem off-duty most of the time, attending marathon dialogue sessions at home. Their company bosses don’t seem to mind.

Unlike fast-paced movies where the story has to be told in three hours, the TV serials can unwind over three years or more. Time is slowed down. For each sentence spoken, the camera zooms on the other characters’ faces to show the reactions, panning left to right, and this is repeated, just in case we missed it the first time. The aim is to draw mileage out of each line of dialogue, milk emotions, and strain our tear ducts.

 

The so-called storyline of the serials depends on TRP ratings. Just when the story has run out of steam, they get an extension. The lucky producers manage this by simply throwing in heavy stuff: extortion, kidnapping, vendetta and general bloodletting. What started as a simple family drama now turns into a crime thriller. The evil characters originally scheduled to turn remorseful, now turn psychos, confusing the viewers and themselves. New characters are imported and parachuted into the middle of the story. Several parallel strands of the story are developed, so that if one strand gets bogged down they can always resurrect the others and get going. At this point even the makers of the serial don’t seem to know where the story is heading. Only the temple priest and the soothsayer periodically hint at something.

All over the country, around 7.30 pm, there is a keen awareness of the clock. The TV serial is about to begin. Family discussions are abruptly cut short. The TV remote is surrendered to the lady of the house. The show begins. But shortly, while she is engrossed in the serial, the man of the house is seen aimlessly walking around the house convulsed by a rumbling stomach. He discovers a chips packet and devours it gratefully. Then he moves on to a biscuit packet. Later he opens the lids of a few vessels on the kitchen slab to see if they contain food. The lady of the house is distracted and stares daggers at him. The man tiptoes away. Luckily, the first commercial break arrives, and the lady of the house is galvanised into action and commences dinner preparation — in instalments. It takes around four such commercial breaks to get dinner on the table. Sometimes the dinner preparation overshoots the commercial break, and the extent of unviewed footage can be gauged by the severity with which the dinner plate is slammed on the table.

And yet, night after night our families attend the “serial” ritual, second-guessing the storylines, laughing at the implausible situations, but remain willingly fascinated. Our day is rounded off only when the last of the back-to-back serials end, and we rise reluctantly, not knowing what else to do with our lives. We hold our breath till the magic hour arrives the next evening, for more of the comforting sameness. Maybe the secret of happiness is predictability.

sagitex@gmail.com

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/the-sub-culture-around-serials/article19194934.ece

 

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