I was channel surfing on a clear Saturday morning out of sheer desperation when a serial on this new channel 'COLORS' caught my attention, and I sat through it absolutely fascinated. I am not much of a television person, but the bouts of human cruelty unfolding on the screen in front of me kept me hooked. It was one of those zillion soaps doing the rounds aajkal, and the story starts with a bahu's first day at her sasural. One whole episode was spent on depicting how her saas and sasur, and the elder bahu plotted on making her life miserable in such a clever manner so that the poor girl had no idea what was happening with her.
The entire episode was so brutal in its execution of harassment towards the girl that I was shocked and hooked. Do misery, exploitation and meaningless vengefulness on screen have their own share of worshipers so that even when you know what's happening on screen is absolutely immoral and unethical you still can't bring yourself to pull the plug? As a nation, are we in love with the idea of torturing and humiliating unsuspecting souls? Otherwise what can explain the popularity of such shows whose only reason for existence seem to be deriving sadistic pleasures?