Ira Math­ur

It was be­com­ing an em­bar­rass­ing ob­ses­sion, this dis­ap­pear­ing in­to my bed­room from 7.30 to 9.30 every evening. It's dif­fi­cult to ex­plain. In­no­v­a­tive ways have to be found to refuse evening in­vi­ta­tions. Go­ing to the movies was al­most al­ways out; phone calls were rushed; vis­i­tors not en­cour­aged. The ob­ses­sion be­gan when I was des­per­ate for some type of di­ver­sion from study­ing for my law fi­nals. It be­gan with a half-an-hour and then es­ca­lat­ed to two-and-a-half hours. It was af­fect­ing my fam­i­ly life. In­di­an soap op­eras do that. They draw you in, with beau­ti­ful clothes, dra­mat­ic di­a­logue, grip­ping plots where the pro­tag­o­nist, usu­al­ly a young beau­ti­ful girl, is ter­rorised by some evil force.

In­di­an so­ci­ety sifts through its tra­di­tions, the ones that ter­rorise, and the ones that ho­n­our hu­man be­ings and fam­i­lies. In one, a poor vil­lage girl is sold off (un­der the delu­sion that she was go­ing to her hus­band's home to whom she was mar­ried as a child) to a rich landown­er's son to bear a son for the fam­i­ly. She is en­slaved; es­capes; hunt­ed down like an an­i­mal, trapped in a pros­ti­tu­tion ring; dis­cov­ers that her par­ents need­ed to sell her to make the lives of the oth­er chil­dren. She lands back in the home of the landown­er, ac­knowl­edg­ing to him and her­self that she has re-en­tered the home as a paid-for ob­ject, with­out soul and dead child­hood dreams. A mis­tress. In an­oth­er, a young girl's par­ents find that be­cause they failed to ed­u­cate their el­dest daugh­ter (a source of shame even among In­dia's rel­a­tive­ly poor mid­dle class), it is dif­fi­cult to find a suit­able boy for her.

Their son and daugh­ter-in-law live with them. Ed­u­ca­tion is pro­mot­ed in this oblique way. So is a "joint fam­i­ly" where the el­ders are re­spect­ed as the heads of the fam­i­ly, sup­port­ing young cou­ples and their chil­dren. Every­one is ex­pect­ed to take care of every­one else.

Then there is the soap where a cou­ple's life is changed for­ev­er, af­ter the hus­band's one night of adul­tery in an oth­er­wise hap­py five-year mar­riage leaves him car­ing for an autis­tic child af­ter the child's moth­er dies in a car crash. Here we see an In­di­an hero in a sel­dom-seen avatar: that of a hus­band who atones for his in­fi­deli­ty by sleep­ing on the floor; who takes care of his autis­tic daugh­ter while try­ing to mend his mar­riage; ed­u­cates him­self on autism; or­gan­is­es his sis­ter's wed­ding, and holds down a job in a bank with in­tegri­ty, de­spite pres­sures to take bribes.

The wife works. She dri­ves, she be­ing the daugh­ter of wealthy par­ents, leaves and re­turns at her will. She puts her adul­ter­ous hus­band out of their mar­i­tal bed­room, but comes home for the sake of their son. It's in­dica­tive of a chang­ing In­dia. By tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to get his sis­ter mar­ried, the hero is steeped in tra­di­tion. By com­ing home his wife shows her com­mit­ment to her son and fam­i­ly life. By ed­u­cat­ing him­self on autism, the hus­band fights his own ig­no­rance and that of the peo­ple around him. These se­ri­als, al­though high­ly-stylised, and ex­cru­ci­at­ing­ly slow, and not en­tire­ly re­flec­tive of the mod­ern and sec­u­lar In­dia of the met­ros where women work and live alone, are of­ten moral­i­ty sto­ries. They are glue for many who feel mis­placed, a map for liv­ing de­cent­ly, a cau­tion­ary tale against su­per­sti­tion and op­pres­sion. They are a pow­er­ful tool in main­tain­ing an iden­ti­ty for a peo­ple.

Ever since I be­came hooked (I fool my­self that I watch on­ly to im­prove my Hin­di) I won­dered about our own soaps. What soaps could we send abroad to our yearn­ing West In­di­an di­as­po­ra from Lon­don to Toron­to who ea­ger­ly scan the In­ter­net for news of home, for the re­mem­brance of lan­guage and a cul­ture of which they see dis­ap­pear­ing in their chil­dren. They would not see any Tri­ni soaps, be­cause de­spite our wealth, we don't pro­duce any lo­cal pro­grammes. We don't de­vel­op our na­tion­al­ism, our sense of be­long­ing, our di­a­logue in this way. Our di­as­po­ra would, on the In­ter­net, per­haps, be hooked to the "soaps" of the Op­po­si­tion and the Gov­ern­ment. They would say to their chil­dren: "This is the soap of the gov­ern­ment. Every few years the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounces that his life is un­der threat.

"This is your op­po­si­tion. They are squab­bling for spoils that don't ex­ist; for a mean­ing­less pow­er be­cause the op­po­si­tion has no im­pact on the peo­ple, or gov­er­nance. They are mim­ic men and women, us­ing words like "eth­nic cleans­ing," blind to the peo­ple who live on the streets, line up for trans­port in the floods, take taxis, wait in hos­pi­tals." Here, I of­fer an idea for a soap. In the gro­cery to­day, I saw an old woman with wa­tery eyes. In her thin hands she held a piece of cheap meat and hops. I saw her eyes take in the boun­ty of a busi­ness­man's large bas­ket, and she sim­ply stood there, as if frozen. What is hap­pen­ing to our el­der­ly? An­oth­er soap. I see a 15-year-old boy with emp­ty eyes. His moth­er tells me he hasn't been to school for six months and it's un­like­ly he will re­turn.

He used to be first in his class and want­ed to be an elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer. He was stabbed on his way to school one day for his phone, which wasn't worth more than $60. Now, he just stands, and looks and waits. Every­body can be bought here, every­one can be sold. It's a soap that will nev­er be made. We will nev­er make them. Not for the next 100 years, be­cause our peo­ple's tongues have been cut off. They are mute. Over 500,000 peo­ple stand on our is­lands, un­able to ut­ter a sound be­cause they are il­lit­er­ate. Those who do have a voice are in­tim­i­dat­ed by our Prime Min­is­ter, who doesn't re­alise that no­body has any­thing against him; that the me­dia are mere­ly a re­flec­tion of the peo­ple. And the peo­ple are mute; de­pen­dent on Cepep pro­grammes, un­e­d­u­cat­ed, dy­ing in our hos­pi­tals, killing one an­oth­er, pup­pets of the pow­er­ful, di­vert­ed by pet­ty po­lit­i­cal in-fight­ing and grandiose state­ments. To­day's soap in T&T? Noth­ing. A dis­con­nect­ed flick­er­ing set of chaos and noth­ing­ness.