By writing this, let me make it clear that it’s not like we’re magically expecting Indian serials to churn out better content pieces. However, we really want to process TV Bahus and their long-standing hatred for electronic items, like coolers and laptops. Why do they wholeheartedly abhor the technology and mentally scar the viewers by treating gadgets in illogical and, sometimes, disastrous ways?
Much like Rohit Shetty’s sadism with cars, we think TV Bahus bear a one-sided vendetta against laptops. When Gopi Bahu washed her husband’s laptop, then hung it to dry among washed laundry while smiling sadistically, our hearts burned in despair. Not for the Bahu, but the poor thing.
What misdeed did laptops ever commit apart from making computers portable (which was a boon, BTW)? Whatever you think laptops ever did, it is us. We, humans, did it while using laptops. We can’t blame the technology we build for the havoc it can be used to create. But that’s a discussion for later.
The infamous Gopi Bahu passed her legacy of hating laptops to Gehna Bahu in the Saath Nibhaana Saathiya franchise. And her actions physically hurt our eyes. The latter eavesdropped on her husband talking about a virus in his computer and then poured phenyl to legit KILL, not the virus, but the laptop itself.
Shocked and horrified at the sheer audacity, all her husband could utter was, “BEVAKOOF ho?” His flabbergasted reaction was all of us at that moment, and the scandalous scene had people wondering whether the creators deliberately produced it for publicity and memes.
While the intention remains a mystery, there’s no limit to Bahus and other female characters dissing technology and gadgets in the Indian daily soap setting. These serials specially reserve such scenes for women who are infamously dumb in every next episode.
Times have evolved, but our soap operas continue to love stereotyping women in roles where they’re unequipped with the basic IQ to function in the world. We’ve known enough serials where countless female characters have spent time making dumb decisions while living for occasional showers of love from their husbands.
Another time, a woman’s dupatta got trapped in a table fan in the middle of a crowd which just stood there, HAW-HAWWing. Nobody thought about switching off the fan. The character herself didn’t realise how ridiculously easy it was to break free from her make-believe noose by simply turning the other way around. But no, the saviour man had to use his teeth and rip apart the killer dupatta to save the supposedly strangled woman.
*sighs in cringe*
We’ve reached a point where desi daily soaps have become a subject of jokes in the memes universe. Plenty of handles dedicated to collating snippets of mind-numbingly foolish scenes have thousands of followers and generate millions of views per reel. It appears that show creators are now in on the joke, given they keep putting out more fodder for social media viewers to gag on their scenes.
There’s another time when a table fan became the villain in a needlessly dramatic sequence. To those wondering, it’s Saath Nibhaana Saathiya again, people. I have no idea why that serial had such unresolved issues with gadgets. But I think it’s also us. After the rasoda reel went viral, we couldn’t stop marvelling at the show’s many oddities.
A string of events beginning with Gopi Bahu ‘accidentally’ dropping a plate full of fruits concludes with an apple ‘accidentally’ switching on the electronic fan, which ambushes Rashi Bahu by blowing chilly powder in the air.
If you ask me, I think it was just the electronic fan avenging laptops.
But laptops are just one bit of this prolonged saga of hatred. There’s a serial called Nath – Zevar Ya Zanjeer, which had a woman, presumably a villain, destroying all the phones because she wanted to kill her arch-nemesis. Her way of doing it was to make a DIY Bomb via mobile phones. But how does she do it?
Well! She drops all mobile phones in a cauldron secretly, where the heroine is supposedly cooking something meetha:
Then, phones blast like a bomb blast, like FIVE times:
And here we thought our lives were dramatic. TV serials are literally Drama Ultra Pro Max 900X.
Where our thinking capabilities end, daily soaps begin. While y’all here are obsessing about Apple products, our serials have already discovered how to make AirPods. Out of humans…
Or do video calls via Ghoonghat…
Once, they also blessed us with a cutting-edge plastic surgery technique. Only it cut our minds into tiny pieces, and we couldn’t fix it. Ever again. Remember that viral clip from a Tamil serial, Roja, when the woman performed plastic surgery with a caricaturish mask on the road?
But even as ridiculous as the scene was, it was not too shocking. You see, for years, Ekta Kapoor had trained us for precisely this one moment when daily soaps would reach their crescendo in the dim-wittedness department. Her thing for replacing actors by making the character undergo plastic surgery had prepared us to be detached from desi serials long back.
Logic repels desi serials. Well, if not all, then most. However, after this comprehensive essay on TV shows hating technology, we’re still hopelessly hoping for this crime to stop. Albeit funny, it’s scarring.
And if you’ve noted this, we’re also tired of seeing humans becoming animals, women being righteously dumb, men being saviours, women sleeping in sarees, and whatnot. But we don’t wanna write another essay on that. Or, do we?
Also Read: A Man Transforms Into An ‘Ichchadhari Bandar’ & Now We’ve Lost All Hopes For Desi Daily Soaps