A friend once told us this apocryphal story. His father was asked by an American sociologist who travelled extensively in India, why was it that while the joint family was still intact in some parts of the country in other places it had come apart? The father replied that it had to do with eating patterns. Rice-eating families held together like the sticky cooked grain, but those dependent on wheat for a staple broke up into nuclear families. It was a practical solution to a realistic problem. Rice could be cooked in large quantities at once and different members of the family could eat at their convenience, but imagine the young daughters-in-law of the family having to knead and roll out dozens of chapattis several times a day. No wonder they opted for smaller set-ups!

Had the sociologist posed this query to me today, I would have told him that nowhere does the Indian joint family exist as it does on television prime time. What is more, these soaps will hasten the disintegration of what remains of the ‘multi-generation family under one roof’ system.

Reams have been expended on the ‘saas-bahu’ serials, but think of the impact these daily six-seven hour churnings have on young girls about to marry into non-nuclear families. With what preconceived notions and trepidation are they crossing the threshold, when each day, every half hour TV screams, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”?

In episode after episode we have the young, vulnerable creatures, brought up in the best parampara of ghar ki izzat and sachhai ki saath, waging lone battles. The entire family — three generations of mothers-in-law, widowed, mischievous maasis, separated, malicious buas and a handful of spineless men — gangs up against her. The husband is predictably malleable.

... contd.