Forget all the conventional arguments about Hindi soaps being regressive, banal and what have you. Try watching them for a week, they are quite hilarious and follow a harebrained pattern. Here is why many of them should appear on the Comedy Central channel.
*A camera will always pan thrice on an actor when he/she has just heard or said something dreadful.
*When some kind of announcement is made, the camera fixes on every member in the room for two seconds at least.
*People marry and re-marry and then marry again.
*Rarely do people get married to the people they love – there is always a sacrifice involved.
*People divorce to keep the ‘enemy’ happy and even marry the enemy to keep the ‘family’s honour.’
*Every marriage has huge problems which mostly end in divorce.
*Divorce is a simple signature-on-a-green-paper affair for chutkara from the partner.
*People who hate each other ultimately fall in love with each other but may or may not get married depending on who is making the sacrifice.
*People say the most important and confidential things with doors open and others always hear.
*People talk to themselves all the time and again people hear.
*The head of the family, a matriarch or patriarch, is always stern, dressed in finery, upholds traditional family values but always has a sordid past to hide.
*People who don’t know English learn it within days and some become doctors with a few episodes of ‘dedicated’ studying.
*The rich call their drivers ‘driver,’ never by name.
*Vamps will always be smarter than the heroines but ultimately the demure ‘main parivaar ke liye kuch bhi karungi’ heroines will triumph.
*And all shed buckets of tears, even men.
*Everybody loves chiffon saris and all bahus have a range of them.
*The sari blouse or the Ghaghara Choli one has to be backless.
*All good wives follow every religious ritual but the ‘bad’ ones only make a farce of following them, which is caught on camera.
*All women wear heavy jewellery at home and men wear silk kurtas.
*All rich homes will have many servants but the cooking is always done by the bahus.
*The door is also always opened by a family member when there are numerous servants floating around.
*People make untold sacrifices for each other; even let their husbands marry other people ‘to keep the family united.’
*When a favour is asked in a temple (when the camera focuses on the deity,) it is always granted. An astrologer is always right.
*Even after a 20 year leap, no one sports grey hair or wrinkles.
*Murder, gunshots, attempted rapes, skeletons are part of life.
*Almost every serial is about a business family and the eldest son of the family is the most honest. But one of the other sons or son-in-law or daughter or daughter-in-law will want all the property and so the problems begins, rather the serial begins.