Kahaani's crying `marital rape'

Some feel that the Balaji K serials are regressive. Their women strut around like Christmas trees, fully dressed and made up in the middle of the night. The values these teleserials project are termed old fashioned and blight on the face of modern womanhood. But it looks like this is no longer the case. Ekta's Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki has dared to discuss a topic no serial has done before- Marital Rape. Here is a brief recap of the last two episodes. Pranay (Shruti and Sameer's son) has just turned into a negative character because of certain incidents in his life. He gets close to Malishka (another woman) in order to hurt Shruti. In the process, his neglected wife Maithali gets emotionally close to someone else. In order to teach her a lesson, Pranay resorts to sexual assault by raping his wife to teach her a lesson. Grr… The pictures were enough to send shivers down your spine. Pranay's clichéd dialogues reeked of a typical feudal attitude … the wife is only the husband's property and his paon ki jutti and well he can use her as the need be. A few years ago in the same serial we had a rapist unrepentantly justifying his action of raping a blind girl, Khushi. It apparently also showed the husband convincing his wife that the rape was committed not out of lust or desire for Khushi but out of a need to punish her for "misbehaving'' and not respecting him enough. Understandably many activists are often up in arms when such sequences are shown on national television, right when the entire family is present in front of the TV sets. Many feel that an attitude like this can lower the confidence levels of women and make men feel that such actions are justified. Well, though this is right to some extent but on the other hand serials also give us a realistic portrayal of how many women silently suffer marital rape. Also, the final treatment by the lead protagonist in the long run does decide the final impact on the audiences. On the Kahaani episode, here's our final judgment. While some members of the Agrawal family actually feel that this is only a pati patni ka mamla, our Parvati bhabhi actually registers a case of rape against Pranay and tries to have him behind the bars. The policeman's cheap interrogation of Maithali also turned the whole episode as a social issue. In this case, instead of making women feel insecure by a discussion on marital rape, we think it actually empowered many to fight for their rights. Just to see a woman in the position of Parvati bhabhi, who would go against the elders in the family, and take a stand in favor of a ravaged woman against her own husband. But then, Parvati bhabhi has always embodied the traditional along with the modern. Now again, she proves that she is no pushover. It surely looks like Balaji Tetefilms wants a makeover from its image of a tradition spewing regressive family drama factory. This time around the production house has also taken the story forward by letting viewers decide whether Parvati should go to the court or not. The polling lines are open and the junta ka faisla will soon be out. While critics will again call it a populist move to garner TRPs, we think it also requires great guts to discuss a topic like this on national television. We truely admire your guts Ekta…