the new audiences for tv soaps, aila !

even five years down the lane of time, i could hardly find a male glued to the television during a daily half hour soap which basically revolved on topics of family drama with highly charged up emotional scenes. but today i can have the list full with them. some of the names are actually surprising because i can vouch that otherwise these 'guys' seem truely practical and pragmatic! well both the words practical and pragmatic have been used in perfect positive sense by me , here. there were times when the only available channel DD showed serials like humlog, nukkad, ramayan and etcetra, and the whole family gathered to watch them. but then came a time when daily soap concept started revolving around the saas bahu saga, where the quintessential sindoor and bindi became the trade mark and ornamentally designed pallus the hallmark. those were the times when not only the subjects of these soaps had a typical feminine audience but also pushed males to channels catering anything but not these.
the dramatic turns of such sopas which took a regular five day pause to unfold were too tiring and monotonous, the repetition of one punch line (read boring & melodramatic) at least thrice, the super pathetic background score in a sad scene, the sudden leaps and jumps of time and generation, the countless number of family members...uff all added to the unbear-ability of it. so if the male population just wanted a different channel or separate tv room or may be a different occupation at that time, no feminist even could raise a word on that!
but surprising it may be,suddenly i find more males booking themselves for the 8.30 to 11 pm slots for tv these days, picking and fixing their very own sopas and deftly switching between channels to catch the glimpse of rest of the lot!!! be it the new era of soaps which include various social and human topics with the flavour of bit of melodrama and touch of unrealism though. but still these topics have if not anything else showed that television serials are not only meant for bahus and saas but even bhaiyas,chachas and taujis too have thier slots and preferences ......cool for a change and india of 21st century (read pragatisheel)