Not an Idealist….But The Very Imperfect Her…

These days when I come back from office and reach home after an hr of hectic (or do I call it adventurous just to motivate myself) travelling and open the door to an empty flat with a sofa set and a dining table in the hall to greet me…I have this urge for some/any human voice to be heard in the empty flat…and so after freshening up myself I invariably switch on the TV but only to my dismay….and I am really amused I must say by these serials which keep coming on every channel now a days…

I mean you switch on the TV and you start browsing for something worthy to watch…and in that little amount of time you spend in browsing or waiting for the advertisements to get over so as to discover which movie is being screened in that particular channel you end up knowing what is happening in which “saans bahu “ serial…..First of all I wonder whom are these serials being screened for…does anyone actually have the time and patience to watch them…even the housewives I don’t think should be watching them out of interest…may be out of sheer frustration as nothing apart from the serials seem to be screened on any of the channels…..and the most atrocious thing being that even news channels have started with giving updates on these serials…as if the trailers being screened 24/7 on every channel were not enough to feed us with enough unwanted updates……

Now the other thing that amuses me is…even if you give up in frustration and as I said just for some human voice to be heard in the house which is not speaking of bomb blasts and train derailments or cricket debacles even if u decide to put up with some nonsensical serial…what you end up watching is an adarsh sanskari bahu….respecting elders…respecting values and culture…who knows in and out of Bhagwadgita and can recite the same at the drop of the hat….who is next only to nightingale in singing bhajans..who by the way knows singing….and cooks finger licking food to everyone’s liking…remembering everyones tastes …who plans for b’days and weddings and all kinds of functions beforehand with a Giga Byte sized memory card fit in her head to remember all the dates…who is the favorite of the entire khandan kaka, mama, dada,dadi,fufa etc etc……who knows what sasu ma’s behen ki nanad ki bhanje ki beti likes and gifts it to her on the appropriate occasion…..whose only aim and ambition in life is everyone in the family adores her and stays tied up she being the glue attaching the family threads together….who is ready to hear and empathize with anyone in trouble in the family and give them moral support as and when needed…who is the perfect ardhangini to her husband whatever comes by……and a never ending list of virtues goes on which would define and re-define her as a complete devi…..

What are these people trying to picturize….I mean why can’t they show a bahu who is more human like and less of the divine natured that they screen…..who doesn’t have time to keep her house spotlessly clean and can manage to clean to livable standards only in the weekends….who doesn’t know how to cook and manages and struggles to make something edible for the day following and writing down instructions dictated by her mother on the phone…..whose day starts with burning bread for her husband…thrusting it on his plate and forgetting to put jam and requesting him to do so himself and trying to get ready to catch the overcrowded public transport available and be on time to her office…whose day goes with solving client issues, issuing reports, analyzing, hearing unsatisfactory remarks from her boss and returns home trying hard to get some place to stand in the public transport again…..whose patience level has reduced to zero by the time she reaches home and she tries hard to remember what she had to buy for grocery…..who struggles to open the door with grocery in both the hands and drops half the things and spends the next half hr cleaning and cursing herself…..who returns to a half clean home which looks clean only on the surface as its middle of the week and still there are three more days to go for the grand cleaning ceremony to happen on the weekend…..who wonders if she has the energy to cook tonight or should she order something from the canteen…..who assigns the task of cutting vegetables to her husband and tries to cook something edible again….whose patience level reduces to –ve when she sees the tray with cut vegetables and the entire area dirty around it with vegetable skin…..who takes out her frustration aloud which fall on deaf ears while cleaning the place….who has no more energy left to respond nicely and sweetly to anyone’s call or remember anyone’s b’day or anniversary or wish anyone even when her mother/mother in law calls up to remind her of so and so’s special day…..she is a person who prefers not to answer to her parents/in-laws questions like “Do you take a bath everyday in the evening and do puja”…”Do u light agarbattis when you go out of home in the morning”…”Have you cleaned the bathroom wall tiles also while cleaning the floor”…”Why don’t u just boil milk daily and have a cup in the morning before you leave for office”…..”Its ok if you cannot cook non-veg during the week…just daal, roti and a simple aloo baingan curry should do…with an omlete to go with it”….”Are u both having enough fruits after food daily…u must get fruits and have”….”why are u having just chowmien for dinner today……u should have cooked something which is food and not snacks for dinner”…..”What? u are having bread everyday for breakfast….you can prepare parathas no…just make all the preparations in the night itself…it hardly takes anytime”…..”You must attend so and so’s function you know….family relations need to be maintained”…..”Iron the dresses as soon as they are washed and dried…it will be good for you”..”Do u face east and do puja or not”…..”why can’t u come early from office so that u can keep a maid to come and do the chores in the evenings”…etc etc…..she is a person who values her career as much she values her family and struggles to strike a balance to the bare minimum extent required…..She doesn’t mind at times giving some extra time to her career which she had dreamt of and struggled to build from childhood…she has no time or energy for values, traditions, culture, Bhagwadgitas , pujas, wishings, superstitions etc…..she is a person who does get frustrated and very well vents it out too……she does lose her patience and cannot empathize with others woes….She does voice her opinion when there is or isn’t any need……She is selfish enough and needs appreciation, looks for people to value her efforts, comfort her, support her and listen to her from time to time frequently ……..She has full right to be childish and intolerable with certain things…….

And this is the real everyday women I am talking of……who is an imperfect bahu, an imperfect wife, an imperfect employee, an imperfect daughter etc…. an imperfect her….as she is playing these roles in real in an imperfect life and not on reel…She is the one who is normal, human and very much larger than life unlike those maniacs which the TV serials keep casting day in and day out only to create a false image of the women as a devi in a very wrong way……which only causes people to believe that girls can be such idealists which their daughters and daughter in laws and wives and sisters are not……I think these mahila mandals if they want to do any good to the society the first thing they should do is ban these serials..