All that ends well

The one area where perhaps serials seem impossibly fabricated is funnily enough, in clothes. Have you noticed what TV characters wear? Enough jewellery for Arvind Kejriwal to raise income tax questions — earrings dangling like chandeliers are just the least. In Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai (Star Plus), one character was wearing a turquoise and gold sari, a blue blouse rimmed with gold, a necklace of gold nutri-nuggets, earrings like gold coins — and this was how she was dressed at home. We all know how well-dressed they are when they go to bed and rise from it. The men, meanwhile, can be seen wearing three-piece suits that belong to the TV ads for that Complete Man of Raymond Suitings (Qubool Hai, Zee). And saris that either glitter more than diamonds or, are conveniently transparent so that all the characters can look into each others hearts and read the good or evil that resides therein. Sometimes, the saris are so gaudily printed they resemble the carpet at Indira Gandhi International Airport (Diya Aur Baati Hum, Star Plus).

As for the homes, most families live like they are filmstars. Have you seen the house where our heroine in Juda Na Honge Hum lives (Sony)? There's a winding staircase made of crystal, a sitting room more spacious than a seven-star hotel, and her bedroom must be bigger than anything the White House offers the president of the United States. Unreal. Or aspirational?

Meanwhile, here's something calculated to bring us all down to earth very heavily and rather rapidly. Cricket. On Tuesday, watched Mohinder Amarnath claiming that dropping M.S. Dhoni as captain had been discussed in the selectors' meeting. Next, he will say they discussed dropping Sachin Tendulkar.

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com

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