Has marriage become a reality show?
I could not help but be utterly horrified when I heard about a reality show called Married At First Sight - and, here, I've moved on from a narrow India-focus to a broader world-focus.
Published: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 12:00 AM
Last updated: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 12:33 PM
When I was growing up (aka, of an 'impressionable' age), watching television came with full-on parental control. I was allowed to watch cartoons and the Lassie Come Home type of films - as and when they were aired - but anything to do with Bollywood (don't think the Bombay film industry had even acquired that sobriquet back then, but I'm not sure), specifically, remained out of bounds. There was, of course, some "Bengali cultural superiority" at play here; my parents, especially my father, were of the opinion that anything produced outside the state of Bengal was déclassé and eminently avoidable.
But there was also an overwhelming feeling that Hindi cinema corrupted young minds with its touchy-feely song-and-dance routines ("obscene" was the word touted). Whenever a romantic song would spring up on the screen without warning, and Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini would start necking in the woods, my mother would immediately turn off the telly. Whenever cabaret numbers burst onto the screen, with a gyrating Helen (or Bindu) barely being able to keep her clothes in place, my father would bellow in rage and say we were about to acquire "gutter-like" mindsets - before turning off the idiot box (alas, multiple channels were yet to make their presence felt in India, so he couldn't jump to Animal Planet or National Geographic).
All this, obviously, had a backlash and, even before I hit my teens, I'd become a self-styled Bollywood acolyte, maintaining my own scrapbooks - but that's another story.
Today, decades after my parents' telling off of anything Bollywoodian, I see them watching reality shows - riveted - where kids younger than my niece (who's seven) wear silver eye shadow, glittery bustiers and indulge in pelvic thrusts that Elvis the Pelvis would have been proud to emulate, and dance to Bollywood cabaret numbers. My niece enthusiastically joins them on the couch when these come on air, and claps her way through entire shows. There's no more any talk of 'corrupting' influences. This is, after all, India's Got Talent.
Well, I have to say the apple cart - bad apples and all - has been overturned in right earnest. Times, they are a-changin'. That's right. And the faster you smoke that into your peace pipe, the better.
Having said that, I could not help but be utterly horrified when I heard about a reality show called Married At First Sight - and, here, I've moved on from a narrow India-focus to a broader world-focus. This one, reportedly, gets consenting strangers to marry; the couple fix-ups - who'll be good for who etc - are determined by an "expert" panel of four: a clinical psychiatrist, a sexologist, a sociologist and, wait for this, a "humanist chaplain". So, three sets of men and women are randomly paired off to the accompaniment of wedding bells, and then packed off on their respective honeymoons. The "fun" part in this is the couples are revisited six months down the line, and viewers are given real-time insights as to how and why those marriages have crumbled (till date - surprise, surprise! - most of the happily-ever-afters haven't been able to "stand the test of time"). And no, it's not because (like I'd have assumed) all of the "volunteers" are basket cases for having had agreed to dive into this in the first place, but for "very real" reasons. Women are saying stuff like one couldn't forgive her "husband" because he eats too much or was checking out the waitress while they were celebrating their "third month anniversary"; the men are saying the "wife" has morphed into a different creature altogether since the time they first set eyes on each other. (Ummm, that would be the time when they exchanging vows, presided over by the 'humanist chaplain'). How could she do this to him? How dare she?
In the 90s, when satellite television took wings in India, I used to watch a reality show called Temptation Island, where married/dating couples would be thrown onto a tropical isle (apparently, the hotter the climate, the more your inner animal is prone to be unleashed) and encouraged to cheat. The bottom line was: if both of you overcame temptations, and stuck only to your spouse/lover, well then, yours is a match truly made in heaven. Married at First Sight takes that idiocy several notches up.
When I visit my parents this time, I plan to clap along with my niece when the bustier-clad five-year-old girls come on screen to dance to sizzling cabaret numbers. I choose the lesser evil. Long live Bollywood.
- sushmita@khaleejtimes.com
iPhone | iPad
Android
Huawei
