Watching the Indian television soap opera?

These are the things you will constantly encounter

• All characters are basically stupid; they do things in the silliest ways which normal humans, even the least educated will never do
• Some great examples ; forgetting to close the front door, losing important documents in the taxi,  leaving the cell phone anywhere,  talking confidentiality without checking who else is likely to listen in, not coming to the point in a heated discussion,  running off to save people without informing important others,  not resolving conflicts with straight talk, giving gossip mongers more importance than near family members,  getting suspicious without trying to verify the matters,  keeping incriminating evidence within reach of all and sundry, not confiding  important matters with the relevant family members, running away from important life changing tasks to attend to something else that’s non of her/ his business, constantly encountering people who distress them, insult them and harm them!
• These days soaps are also the wagons for fashion merchandise. Therefore we see the characters wearing mind boggling clothes and accessories which are completely at odds with their life situations!
• The negative characters are clearly more intelligent and better at planning and executing plans than the protagonist. In fact it is odd but we tend to like them better than the silly heroines and heroes.
• The families are all joint families. They bicker, fight, curse each other, connive against each other, but none will leave the household to live in peace elsewhere!
• Women are all the time engaged in cooking sumptuous meals, serving them, doing various poojas, and keeping fasts for their husbands. Even the so called highly educated and employed ones too are never shown at work place; they are hovering around the house
• Rival families do not leave the neighbourhood ever, even if living in rented premises! They will remain there and keep fighting with each other
• All characters go to the same places; shopping malls, pooja pandals,  hotels, cinema halls, hospitals and police stations; even though we are told they live in large cities such as Delhi and Mumbai
• The once traditional segregation of the genders is sacred for our telly serial writers. Not one episode goes without emphasising what is expected of women, nothing much is said about what is expected of men though
• Social stigma based on traditional Indian society is emphasised repeatedly. A married woman can be bashed up by her husband, but she must suffer in silence, but if the woman falls in love with another man, its blasphemy! More than the man, the characters in the soap blame the woman, though he is a married man and deserves as much blame as her!
• The in laws house and mother ‘s house differences are equally unreasonably depicted. In real life families get on pretty well, but not so serials. The girl’s family has to be subservient to the man’s family.
• Most men in soaps are clothes hangers, nothing more. The few who are important for the plot or either emphasising the stereotypes or downright villainous. Most often the drama is going on between women. These fellows are hanging around. Occasionally a patriarch will mouth the family rules that women must follow. Hardly will he ever tell the men what they should be doing!
• If a woman has been wronged terribly, she dies and becomes a naagin, bhoot or a chudyl (Devil) to take revenge but never will she be allowed to take revenge being just herself! That is, it is not good to show such role models on TV so that women get encouraged to bash up an abusive husband or in laws! She has to become a devil to do that!  After all devils and naagins are safer than an emancipated woman!
• The other community agencies such as police, hospitals, banks etc are also shown to be equally careless and stupid. Nurses reveal confidential matters without verifying who is asking for information, doctors notoriously support false hospitalisation, diagnosis and treatments, police walking into houses without warrants, bank managers falling for clout rather than verifying documents of customers etc
• Everybody is eavesdropping all the time; but never listen to anything nice. The good things said are not heard, but the silly things are heard and further misunderstandings are created.
• Friends in serials are equally idiotic. They hardly ever try to truly help resolve conflicts, but are mostly instrumental in aggravating a situation.
• The revenge drama too is really funny. The villain takes up the most convoluted path for taking revenge, where he/she could have easily finished off the matter within no time.

My advice

Unless you want to enjoy the stupidity of human beings being depicted, do not watch the nonsensical drivel.

They not only spoil one’s mind, but make us feel bad we humans are such as a sad lot of idiots.

Those among us are sane might get insane too!!!