One jhooth, one tarbooz
A still from Diya Aur Bati Hum
Jab bhi Star Plus and I meet, the ladies of Indian television’s No. 1 channel greet me with a jingle: “Rishta wahi, soch nayi!” And main bhi, kutte ki dum, respond every time with the same snide one: “Syappe wahi, trappings nayi!” Almost two years ho gaye hain since Star decided to rebrand itself with this jhooth.
In these two years they have given us the same old crap that they had been giving us for years — misadventures involving rotund mothers-in-law whose main agenda in life is to ensure a seriously delayed coitus for bahu, while wilting new bahu cries over every small thing, and chudail bhabi — whose occupation, if anyone were to ever make her resume, would be listed as Chief Spoke in All Manner of Wheels — dances like Saroj Khan at every misfortune of her parivaar.
But then I thought, naya saal hai, maybe they have started delivering on their promise. So I switched on their top show, Diya Aur Bati Hum. But here toh all that the Rathi parivaar did all week was to stand around hakka-bakka, i.e. gobsmacked, while rottweiler Bhabho did a strange about-turn on Sandhya — Bhabho suddenly wants her bahu to study, so she served her food, got her cotton saris starched and is insisting, as we speak, that Sandhya quickly gets into a police uniform to save the world and make her proud.
Of course there is a jagged undercurrent to this new-found love-shav for bahu and that is to pile guilt on her son Sooraj for putting wife before parivaar. It’s taken a year and three virtuous acts from Sandhya to get here but, still, Sandhya still opens her mouth only once a month and Sooraj tries to say something once every six months.
Chalo, I thought, Republic Day hai, ek aur chance toh banta hai. So off I went to Star’s No. 2 show, Saath Nibhana Saathiya, where, as you know, the original simpering Gopi has been replaced by a less-annoying-hence-less-effective chick. The rest is the same. Kolika ben is the same to same colourful hippo. Arre, so multi-coloured is she that you and I can organise a Tippy Tippy Tap... What Colour You Want championship using just her face.
Hai, but yeh kya! Yahan toh mohalle ki women are competing with each other to grow a sweet, tasty, round-round tarbooz, i.e. watermelon, and the lesson to be drawn from their gardening exercise is that if you can fertilise and water your watermelon and make sure that when it is cut it is juicy and delicious, you are destined to be a very good mother. I’m guessing all watermelon farmers in this country fantasise about huge pregnant tummies and lactating breasts, and day and night talk nonsense to their watermelons while begging them to go to sleep.
I have a suggestion for Star parivaar bahus. Next time when they think of getting pregnant, I recommend that they make a large ladoo and the Good Mommy Test will be that they sleep with it, caress it, kiss it, but don’t start chomping it in the dark of the night. That will be a naya rishta, nayi soch. Nahin toh same shitty rishta, same shitty soch.
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