Of Tamil Serials and Real-life Situations

I’m a Tamil serial addict … blame my mum for that. Well initially I used to get irritated whenever mum sat down to watch all these serials … oh btw she has sole rights to the TV from 6.30pm to 11pm every night (to watch the news, a couple of health/social documentaries and the Tamil serials), with the exceptions of weekends when I get to watch my favourite programmes … and that too because the serials only run from Mondays to Fridays. And yes, mum gets the TV back around 4pm for the Malayalam movies on Saturday and the Tamil movies on Sunday.

Ok back to my irritation and eventual addiction … at first I used to leave mum alone to watch her serials in peace while I went upstairs and surfed the internet. I tried to watch some of the serials but I would get angry at the sheer absurdity of what was going on. I mean really … the romance, the parents who are against the relationship, the baddie (usually a male or female who is in love with the hero/heroine but was rejected and is now out to extract revenge .. yes they do have female baddies too), the henchmen (usually of dark complexion, long unkept hair and the ability to whisk out a parang from the back of their shirt without even so much as a nick), the friends of the hero/heroine who will go to great lengths to help them out whenever they are in a jam, the policemen who arrest and beat up the good guys just because some baddie (who is usually rich and powerful) told them to do so, the doctors who refuse to treat a patient unless you show them the money first or who refuse to admit someone who has been beaten up/stabbed/shot/tried to commit suicide … because “this is a police case”.

Eventually I realized that I was being selfish. Mum is alone at home all day and deprived of company and looks forward to my return after work and the times that I used to sit and watch the serials with her, she loved to keep me up to speed about what was happening. Soon I started to join here and got caught up with the plot … of course I would still point out everything and anything that didn’t make sense and the fact that most of the heroes/heroines in these serials had a martyr complex … I mean seriously … someone financially ruins your entire family, causes you to lose your job/have a miscarriage, tries to kill you, tries to kill your husband/wife, gets you arrested on a false murder charge, causes a rift between your siblings/partner and you, kidnaps your child … you get the picture … and the person in question remains unruffled and is so ready to forgive and forget!

Another thing which continues to baffle me is the ability of the baddie to repeat word for word a private conversation that took place between the protagonist and someone else regardless of which part of the world the conversation took place, hence providing the baddie with the upper hand to always stay one step ahead in his/her quest for revenge. Oh yes and how can I forget the ‘stupidity’ of some people who when confronting the baddie, will tell him/her exactly in detail what they are going to do, i.e. I have evidence against you which I’m keeping in my bedroom in the brown oak cabinet in the 3rd drawer underneath my pile of sarees and the key for the cabinet is hanging on a chain around my neck and I’m going to pass this evidence to the police and make sure that you go to jail etc etc (of course if this evidence is in the form of documents or photographs, the protagonist neglects to make copies and so if the baddie decides to steal it, we’re back to square one).

And then we have the parents who will go to great lengths to stop their beloved child (this is the rich family) from getting married to their one true love who just happens to be poor or from a different caste etc. Heck, one father even went to the extent of killing his daughter just because she married a poor fella. To this father, honour was more important than anything else. Of course we can easily say that this is just TV – not reality. Sad to say, some of it is based on real life.

I’m sure all of you would have read about honour killings that take place in India, Pakistan and many Middle-Eastern countries or would have heard about parents/relatives who were against love marriages.

And this brings me to the actual reason for this blog posting. My friend Laura* has been in a relationship with David* for about 2 1/2 years now (names have been changed to protect privacy etc etc etc). She is quite sure that this is the man that she wants to spend the rest of her life with and so has introduced him to some of her close friends and her family. Now David on the other hand, has yet to publicly acknowledge Laura as his girlfriend. Although Laura has been to his house and met his parents, it was always under the guise of “she’s just a friend”. The reason for David’s hesitancy is that his mother has a vision of how her future daughter-in-law should be and I guess that Laura does not fit into this mould. David is the only boy in his family and the mother wants to ensure that the future generation comes from a certain ‘good stock’.

I’ve never met David’s mother personally but somehow she sounds like one of those mothers from the Tamil serials who will be totally against her son’s choice of a life partner. In fact she has even gone to the extent of selecting several prospective brides for him (complete with photo and biodata etc) and asked him to choose. What irked me is that when David’s mother asked him if he was seeing anyone, he didn’t have the guts to say yes – I mean … hello … you have been with this girl for more than 2 years now … what’s your problem?

The way I see it, David is either scared shit of his mother or he’s not really sure if Laura is the right one for him (although he always tells he that she is the one).



Anyway to cut a long story short, Laura has finally given David an ultimatum – “Tell your parents (particularly mummy dearest) about me or I’ll walk”. I know that in the event David goes against his mother’s wishes and marries Laura anyway, his mum won’t actually resort to murder or anything of that sort, but she will probably be upset and may cut ties with their son – and that’s what Laura doesn’t want. For her, it’s important to have the blessings of both families.

What I don’t understand is why parents feel that they have the right to decide whom their child should or should not marry. If the person they are in love with is a good, honest person who will make their partner happy, why stand in their way? Why should your child marry someone just because you think it is the right choice for them? After all, your time will soon pass and your child is the one who’s left behind to spend the rest of his/her life with this person. Even if he/she makes a mistake in choosing a life partner, let it be … ultimately it’s their life, not yours, so don’t turn their lives and yours into a Tamil serial.