Archive for the ‘Power’ Category
Na aana is des laado – More troubles for Sia and Raghav ?
On February 02, 2010 in Channels, Colors, Hindi Serial, Na Aana Iss Desh Ladoo, Poor, Power
It seems that Sia and Raghav have to traverse a long distance before their love story can hope to see a logical end. Ammaji’s close brush with death that had been closely averted due to Sia’s timely intervention had helped to open a channel of communication between these two individuals. The love that had lain dormant in Sia’s heart and that Raghav had refused to acknowledge found an outlet courtesy the tragic incident. Raghav grateful to Sia for saving his mother’s life has woken up to his responsibilities as a husband; something that he ignored all these months. He not only went to fetch Sia from the hospital, he started to actually care about her well being.
Just as the viewers were expecting things to turn for the better for the pair of them, Raghav’s past has caught up with him. Sonali, Raghav’s girl friend from London has followed him all the way to Veerpur. Unaware that her boyfriend is now a married man, her sole purpose for coming is to marry Raghav. It seems that they had broken up in London but she realised the depth of her feelings for him after this incident. She is now determined to win him back and settle down with him. Her appearance has put on the brakes for the developing of love and understanding between the lead pair.
Devi – A slice of real life?
On January 30, 2010 in Channels, Child, Devi, Hindi Serial, NDTV Imagine, Poor, Power, Ruthless
NDTV Imagine’s Devi in its first few episodes has shown promise in terms of story and treatment. Like most serials of today, it is also set in rural India and talks about the lives of poor villagers who are held ransom to faith, bad weather, lack of opportunities and an evil Thakur (landlord). It has so far been a telling commentary on some of the ills affecting rural India. On the one hand it talks of superstition and old belief patterns and those who exploit the poor in the name of both. On the other hand it brings to the fore the status of women in India’s villages. It talks of the double bind that women find themselves in terms of caste/class and gender.
A baby girl is born to a poor family and the father is forced to abandon the child because of his limited means. Coincidentally the day of her birth sees rainfall in the village after three consecutive years of drought. The village priest convinces the superstitious and God-fearing villagers that the baby is a reincarnation of the Goddess. As more people are convinced of her divine status, a small group of people are out to make money. Her own father and uncle fall in this category and the two in fact end up fighting about who gets to keep the lion’s share of the income she has generated. The villagers throng to catch a glimpse of her as they are convinced that she will rid all the ills of their lives. They even turn in their hard-earned money as offering. Thus as she cries lustfully in the hot sun as she is hungry, the superstitious villagers turn a deaf ear to her wails and keep chanting “Jai Devi”. Their false notions of divinity and reincarnation help them to ignore her cries of hunger and overlook the fact that she is only a hapless little thing.
Ammaji – Audacity is thy name!
On January 29, 2010 in Colors, Drama, Family, Hindi Serial, Na Aana Iss Desh Ladoo, Power
Ammaji’s audacity knows no bounds. First she staged the drama of her own death, thereby convincing her enemies to come out in the open and declare themselves. Having drawn out Dharam Veer Singh and District Magistrate Vohra, she flogged her own brother-in-law to an almost-dead state. Not being satisfied with this, she then tied the man to the end of her jeep and dragged him all over the village and threw him to the wild animals. Forbidding him to ever enter the village she punishes not only him but his entire family; as he is husband to one and father to two.
Instrumental in saving her life has been Sia, married to her youngest son Raghav but who she has reduced to the position of a servant girl in the house.Sia proved her mettle as a fine woman when she threw herself in the line of the bullet that was meant to kill Ammaji. Honoring a human life more than all the resentment (justifiably so) that she has against Ammaji and her cruel ways, she arrives just in time to warn Ammaji of the threat to her life. Had it not been for her timely intervention Ammaji would have surely fallen prey to Dharam Veer and DM Vohra’s schemes.
Na Ana Is Desh Mere Lado – Ammaji – What power does to a woman
On January 25, 2010 in Character, Colors, Drama, Family, Hindi Serial, Power, Revenge, Ruthless, Society, TV, Violent
Na Ana Is Desh Mere Lado can be the subject for a very interesting sociological study on the concept of ‘power’. Power logically ought to be sexless, genderless. The long association of power with the male gender has made the two concepts almost synonyms of each other. The relation between the powerful and powerless also is best exemplified by the man-woman gender divide and bias. Men are more or less in all given situations the dominant element-aggressive, in your face, almost brutish. And they go to any lengths to retain the throne of power, subduing all attempts made by women to tilt the scale of balance of power. Woman are more docile, submissive malleable; not only in their demeanour and attitude but also in their stance. Thus it so happens that if ever a woman were to scale the position of power, her internal and external self becomes more ‘male-like’.
Ammaji is the best example that one can use to support this argument. She is the centre of power in her domain, Veerpur. But here the rules, hierarchy, structure, roles, and systems that she lords over and protects are those that are male oriented. So she does not hesitate to carry out female infanticide, scorning the womb that nurtures a girl child and celebrating the ones that produce boys. She gets her sister-in-law flogged by her husband (Ammaji’s brother-in-law) just because she had dared to give birth to a girl. She is even willing to use her niece as a pawn to win favours from the evil District Magistrate Vora. Thus in spite of the fact that she is a woman, while acting out her role of the village head she follows essential male standards and precedents.
Even while doling out punishments, she chooses ways and means that are more popular with men. She prefers to whip her adversary, Dharam Veer Singh (guilty of having conspired to kill her) using her favourite whiplash. She does not shy away from using those means of punishment that will involve using considerable physical strength on her part. Like a man she ties the same villain to the back of her jeep (a vehicle driven mostly by men and that she drives herself) and drags him all around the village as an example, to instil fear into the hearts of all those who might have hopped to bring her down.
