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...A consortium of cinemas in Sweden and the Scandinavian cable TV channel are subjecting films to the Bechdel test and rating them accordingly...The Bechdel test is named after Alison Bechdel, who in a 1965 cartoon strip Dykes To Watch Out For featured a woman who got out of watching a movie by declaring that she refused to watch a movie that didn't have at least two women who talk to each other about something besides a man....Why, our saas-bahu series on television pass the Bechdel test in flying colours. You have so many women characters talking about curious household matters. Arch-browed women perpetually plotting against other women. Head-bowed women sweetly serving the said arch-browed women. Well-endowed, shimmery-lipped women barking at perpetually-cowed, quivering-lipped women. It's all very woman-friendly, so to speak. Naturally, given that these are made for and primarily watched by women...
...Antara Dev Sen, Editor, The Little Magazine, DC Edit Page, Saturday, 9 November 2013.
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Black & White TV came to the campus of IIT KGP in the late 1970s. My friend, NP, a gadget-lover, had one of the earliest sets installed in his Qrs..instal is the right word...it was a hybrid set meaning half vacuum tubes and half transistors. And it needed a tall dipole- array Yagi antenna erected on their roof that could be accessed only by a series of hops, pullups, jumps long and high. The campus was at the edge of the reception of Calcutta Doordarshan which was the single monopoly channel...'any channel as long as it is Doordarshan' was their motto. I guess more time was spent trying to get a watchable picture than watching it.
I was a bleak bachelor then and so it was only on my visits to their Qrs that I got to watch TV. So I couldn't follow the only sitcom that was regularly aired then: the famous 156-episode Hum Log. I always thought that 'sitcom' came from Sitting-Room Comedy. I am wrong...it is a 'situational comedy'.
Hum Log was certainly not a comedy as far as I could make out...it was a serious affair. But within weeks, wherever I went, I heard from ladies how MUCH they were looking forward to its next episode. The term wasn't in vogue then but it was a blockbuster. When I said that the story was too serious for me, I was rebuked by my neighbor:
"Surely, Hum Log is not for rickshawalas"
Soon enough there were the Ramayan and Mahabharat serials which were as popular with rickshawalas as with my neighbor...they were the true levelers.
The said neighbor used to ruefully watch what was called Tamas which certainly was not a comedy...situational or recreational.
I got married in 1979 and my wife had to wait all of 7 years to get her own TV set. But I gave her a Color TV. The less said about its colors the better...they were gory.
But by then I got a sitcom I loved to watch with my wife and kid son. It was titled Eh Joh Hai Zindagi. I don't know if it was a hit with rickshawalas. But it was a hit with me. Soon enough I got bored watching the only channel available...airing Krishi Darshan whenever I switched my color TV on.
Then came to our Qrs a young boy, Radhesh, who talked me into subscribing for his newly installed Cable TV. I asked him what was so great about it. And he said:
"I will give you Zee TV and BBC"
The die was cast and, for a decade and more then on, I had to make weekly trips to his office under the Water Tank at the command of my wife. No doubt I loved to watch once in a while the new blockbuster Hum Paanch. Paanch was less serious than Log...I heard of Vidya Balan and Ekta Kapoor for the first time from my wife...and a hundred times later on.
Then there was an explosion of what came to be known as Saas Bahu serials. I of course stopped watching them but they were showstoppers with my wife. And then came the Telugu Channel of Zee TV. And my wife and her mom got hooked. My son grew up to IIT then and I got too old to watch anything but Tom & Jerry. My son tried to dissuade his mom from watching the Telugu soaps saying that they may hurt her psyche. But of course he was wrong...my wife replied that one has to switch off one's brain while watching them.
Prof V's old mom and dad couldn't do that. And they got scared and lost their sleep. And had to be taken to a psychologist who promptly advised them not to watch Telugu sitcoms anymore.
My son, brought up in Bengal, asked a classmate of his hailing from Tenali in AP:
"Tell me Chandu...do you watch Telugu sitcoms when you go home on vacations?"
"Paagal ho!"
I once took a bet with my wife:
"I bet that in any Saas Bahu episode the word 'Shaadi' will occur if you wait for just 2 random minutes"
I won hands down...
Prof V's two sons, Charan (8) and Varun (6) used to visit our home once in a while along with their parents on a social call...on condition that they be allowed to watch Pop Eye, the Sailor Man. And sitting by their side I got hooked to Pop Eye...the two kids roared and roared.
Ishani, when she was 2, loved watching Tom & Jerry, Pop Eye, and Chota Bheem.
She is now on 3 and she shouts when these episodes are switched on:
"These are for kids, mom. Tune in to the music and dance channel! (showing hits from the likes of Chennai Express)"
Nowadays when my son returns home after 11 PM, I join him in our late-night TV dinner. He knows that I love to watch Rohan Patoley in Strictly Street aired by Travel XP (HD). For me Rohan is a star. He just loves what he has to eat...unlike me.
It is strange how many dishes that you take for granted in your youth go out of bounds for you when you grow toothless. Anything having cashew, for one. And rotis and paranthas, forget pizzas.
You are left with soft idlis and heavily buttered bread.
But that doesn't mean you dislike watching someone eat with relish...like Rohan:
I was a bleak bachelor then and so it was only on my visits to their Qrs that I got to watch TV. So I couldn't follow the only sitcom that was regularly aired then: the famous 156-episode Hum Log. I always thought that 'sitcom' came from Sitting-Room Comedy. I am wrong...it is a 'situational comedy'.
Hum Log was certainly not a comedy as far as I could make out...it was a serious affair. But within weeks, wherever I went, I heard from ladies how MUCH they were looking forward to its next episode. The term wasn't in vogue then but it was a blockbuster. When I said that the story was too serious for me, I was rebuked by my neighbor:
"Surely, Hum Log is not for rickshawalas"
Soon enough there were the Ramayan and Mahabharat serials which were as popular with rickshawalas as with my neighbor...they were the true levelers.
The said neighbor used to ruefully watch what was called Tamas which certainly was not a comedy...situational or recreational.
I got married in 1979 and my wife had to wait all of 7 years to get her own TV set. But I gave her a Color TV. The less said about its colors the better...they were gory.
But by then I got a sitcom I loved to watch with my wife and kid son. It was titled Eh Joh Hai Zindagi. I don't know if it was a hit with rickshawalas. But it was a hit with me. Soon enough I got bored watching the only channel available...airing Krishi Darshan whenever I switched my color TV on.
Then came to our Qrs a young boy, Radhesh, who talked me into subscribing for his newly installed Cable TV. I asked him what was so great about it. And he said:
"I will give you Zee TV and BBC"
The die was cast and, for a decade and more then on, I had to make weekly trips to his office under the Water Tank at the command of my wife. No doubt I loved to watch once in a while the new blockbuster Hum Paanch. Paanch was less serious than Log...I heard of Vidya Balan and Ekta Kapoor for the first time from my wife...and a hundred times later on.
Then there was an explosion of what came to be known as Saas Bahu serials. I of course stopped watching them but they were showstoppers with my wife. And then came the Telugu Channel of Zee TV. And my wife and her mom got hooked. My son grew up to IIT then and I got too old to watch anything but Tom & Jerry. My son tried to dissuade his mom from watching the Telugu soaps saying that they may hurt her psyche. But of course he was wrong...my wife replied that one has to switch off one's brain while watching them.
Prof V's old mom and dad couldn't do that. And they got scared and lost their sleep. And had to be taken to a psychologist who promptly advised them not to watch Telugu sitcoms anymore.
My son, brought up in Bengal, asked a classmate of his hailing from Tenali in AP:
"Tell me Chandu...do you watch Telugu sitcoms when you go home on vacations?"
"Paagal ho!"
I once took a bet with my wife:
"I bet that in any Saas Bahu episode the word 'Shaadi' will occur if you wait for just 2 random minutes"
I won hands down...
Prof V's two sons, Charan (8) and Varun (6) used to visit our home once in a while along with their parents on a social call...on condition that they be allowed to watch Pop Eye, the Sailor Man. And sitting by their side I got hooked to Pop Eye...the two kids roared and roared.
Ishani, when she was 2, loved watching Tom & Jerry, Pop Eye, and Chota Bheem.
She is now on 3 and she shouts when these episodes are switched on:
"These are for kids, mom. Tune in to the music and dance channel! (showing hits from the likes of Chennai Express)"
Nowadays when my son returns home after 11 PM, I join him in our late-night TV dinner. He knows that I love to watch Rohan Patoley in Strictly Street aired by Travel XP (HD). For me Rohan is a star. He just loves what he has to eat...unlike me.
It is strange how many dishes that you take for granted in your youth go out of bounds for you when you grow toothless. Anything having cashew, for one. And rotis and paranthas, forget pizzas.
You are left with soft idlis and heavily buttered bread.
But that doesn't mean you dislike watching someone eat with relish...like Rohan:
My mom once told me:
"They say a woman is fortunate if she dies a Sumangali (husband alive). But I don't agree"
"Why so?"
"Because a widowed woman always has access to kitchen wherever she lives, and can cook and eat whatever she wants, unlike a man who has to depend on someone else for cooking his meals"
Of course she is wrong...she was talking of times when men didn't know how to cook. Nowadays, when both men and women go to work, both have to know how to cook.
But 'kitchen control' is a different matter.
For fun I suddenly asked a young married lady:
"Do ladies like husbands who can cook or those who can't?"
Her reply was instant:
"Ladies love husbands who can't cook. Then they cease to be a nuisance in the kitchen, though not on the dining table"
Amen!
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