Mother of all shows tests homemaking skills
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Sita Maiyya ke zamase se Draupadi ke heydays tak, har yug main ladies log are put through difficult-difficult tests at every stage of their lives — to check for good sanskar, for the ability to do tyaag and tapasya, to endure, to keep quiet.
Hamare festivals, relationships, every aspect of our lives is designed to constantly monitor and judge if women are good wives, good mothers, good cooks, good hosts, good home makers, good in bed... And this is not a Bharatiya phenomena, it’s a global collaboration of all men and their willies.
So it was natural that hamare TV ke worthies would steal an agnipariksha idea that originated in the West and quickly apply it to women in the East, but with a twist. What was Wife Swap in white-white land has become Maa Exchange (Sony) in desi duniya. Arthaat, gents log sucked out the maza and delivered what they think is a clean, pious idea.
Wife Swap would have been so much more interesting — woh sirf ladies ko hi khush nahin karta, gents ke bhi cockles ko warm rakhta. Entertaining gender dhishum-dhishum bhi ho jaati and both aadmi and aurat ka test bhi ho jata. But nahin. Men don’t want eyes trained on them — they are happy for camera crews to follow women all day long, judging every action, every word.
Maa Exchange’s concept is simple. Two very vipreet ladies who are living very vipreet lives are picked up and exchanged. They are put in a world that is diametrically opposite to theirs, and for eight days everything — from their ability to adapt, to accept, to always be warm and loving, to be of sound moral fibre and strong of character — is checked and then judged.
Maa Exchange ke first episode main Pooja Bedi was sent to the small flat of one Mr Nigam and his son, while Mrs Nigam was picked up and put in Ms Bedi’s plush house. Ms Bedi, an empowered celebrity, a sex symbol who turns men into delirious, clingy puppies, was put with two men, and Mrs Nigam, a round, simple housewife was pitted against a precocious celeb child and her antsy nanny in a house that was straight out of Elle Decor. What do you think happened?
The second set of Maas was also deviously different. One Mumbai aunty who is fat and fun-loving, and living in a house that is small, messy and chaotic was exchanged with a lady from the hills who does yoga in the morning with her children and husband, drinks cow ka susu and teaches classical dance. Who do you think won this battle?
Actually, no woman has or will emerge victorious on this show. They will all come out with battered self-esteem and a long list of Things To Do To be a Better Wife/Mother/Homemaker. They must then work on themselves to be more caring, more loving, better, greater, prettier, thinner, fairer, sweeter, sexier... Yuck, yucky, yuckiest.
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