Note: In some cases, the time 6:30 pm may start very early and 8:00 pm may prolong further.
Before starting, just say whether the scenarios explained below is familiar to you or not.
Scenario1 :
You may be coming home after your day’s work, driving through the mad rush in the roads, tired to the core, and will lean to the chair/sofa in front of the ‘idiot box’ (TV is also called so) right under the fan to relax a bit. You will start searching for the
something on top of the table in front of you or in between the newspapers or magazines scattered over it. As usual, not to your surprise, it won’t be there. With the anger already surfaced on you, you will scream in the direction of kitchen, where your mother/wife/sister may be busy preparing tea for you. ‘Where is it??? Errrr…’ (
PS: Guys will definitely scream. But girls, I cannot predict. They may be a bit softer than guys, I guess.) No answer. With desperation you will continue your search and will find it from either the top of your TV or from the side of the window pane next to you or from the floor or from under your buttocks sometimes (I used ‘
sometimes’ here for your sake only; the right word would be ‘
often’). At last you will definitely grab it, what? Yes, the ‘
remote controller’. Then you will start playing with it, surfing through your favorite channels back and forth for a number of times and will end up with one. (
PS: Favorites for the youth may range from sports, music, cartoons to news channels. Hey, don’t get angry, I did not forget the FTV kind of stuffs, but excluded them purposefully since it is 6:30 pm only and not 12:30 midnight.)
Scenario2:
By this time, the clock might have struck 6:30. Within no time you will find that the chairs, if present or the floor space next to you will be occupied by your loved ones. These loved ones will definitely include your mother (and wife, if your bachelor degree is lost), most definitely your grandmother, with all probability your grandfather, and with least probability your father also. In some cases, the list will include aunts and uncles also. In short,
the house is full by this time. They are there to catch up their favorite
daily soap serials which is about to start now. Even though you know their intentions clearly, you won’t change your favorite channel thinking ‘This time, I won’t give up’ since this has become a routine now. But you can’t hold it too long and your resistance will end up in vain in front of your ‘loved ones’. (
PS: By this time surely there will be certain degree of decrease in the ‘love’ quantity for these
loved ones.) Finally you will move away from this place.
Before proceeding further I will pose some questions to you all, ‘all’ in the sense I refer to youth especially. ‘How many of you watch your favorite TV programs between 6:30 pm and 8:00 pm at home?’ or I will put it another way, ‘How many of you have a tough time with your parents at this time to watch your favorite programs?’
Well, I guess there are many hands up already.
As we all know, these serials carry subjects which are far from reality and present it in the most melodramatic way. Here, I am not going to question the values of these serials, but rather trying to find an answer for the below question.
"Why these women, especially house wives, and elders desperately wait to watch these serials in between their daily chores while men are not that much interested? Why is this gender discrimination and age discrimination?"
I think our women are fully aware of the fact that what they are seeing is really stupid and non-sense. (In most serials, the mother and grandmother look much younger than the central character played by the girl). Then, again, why this addiction? And we, pretending to be the intelligent people, will usually make fun of them for wasting time by watching these crap things. I will rather say that
these people are hypnotized to these serials and the cause is their living surroundings.
After we leave from the house in the morning to our work/studies, did we ever think what these people (housewives and elders) have to do at home. They lead regular lives with a familiar and mostly a boring daily routine. What they have as a means of entertainment? ‘
Loneliness’, right? This loneliness pushes many old people as well as people who have little to do all day long in the house towards the idiot box which becomes their only window to the outside world. Their social life is usually limited to the four wall of the house whereas men will go out to hang out with their friends, may go out to catch their favorite movies etc etc. That is men have various means of entertainment whereas the housewives and elder people have none and they find TV as their resort.
Today, many teenagers are also turning to the TV as sort of relief and entertainment as families become nuclear and they have fewer people around to talk to.
These
soap TV Serials give these women or elder people a reason to talk and share their ideas with one another. So sometimes a mild addiction to TV serials is a good thing since it brings joy to some people.
We cannot deny the fact that TV serials have become a (integral) part of our lives. Addiction to them, however, is a personal preference and subject to one’s choices.
