|
|
|
|
Some questions about microfinance and self-help groups
The editorial examines how self-help groups and microfinance may not be what they were once intended to be - the silver bullet to eliminate poverty - and this could soon become a case of the cure being worse than the disease.
 Read |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Responses to the Editorial in Phalanx 4
Why Does the Anglophone Indian want to be a Novelist?
Read |
|
|
|
|
|
Films: |
|
|
Avatar
by James Cameron
Read |
|
|
3 Idiots
by Rajkumar Hirani Read |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home > Contents > Essay: Swati Ganguly |
|
|
The Perfect Bride
Money, Matrimony and Reality Television
Swati Ganguly
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The context
The year 2009 marked the return of the theme of the great Indian matrimonial alliance to the Indian culture industry in a new avatar: the television 'reality' show. Thousands of viewers sat glued to their television sets excitedly tracking the trajectory of 'elimination' that gradually lead to the choice of the 'perfect' marital partner in programs like Rakhi ka Swayamvar (on NDTV Imagine) and Lux Perfect Bride ( on STAR Plus). In this essay I propose to explore the significance of 'reality' television shows in representing how intimacies are re-negotiated within contemporary globalized televisual consumer cultures by focusing on Lux Perfect Bride (hence forth LPB).
A feminist viewing would immediately reveal its ideological underpinnings: LPB reinforces the dominant discourse about marriage as a patriarchal institution, the power of patriarchy and parivar (family). It endorses, as part of this process, the conservative notions of gender roles and expectations and manipulates the sexual politics of playing women off against one another at multiple levels- it has ten young women contesting/ competing with each other for the attention of five eligible young bachelors in order to secure their claims to the title of the 'perfect bride' at one level; on the other the young women or prospective brides and older women are engaged in the domestic politics of intrigues, nasty bickering and scheming to ensure positions of importance within the system.
These constitute the stock-in- trade of a large number of serials that had once been very popular in Indian television and earned the appellation of K serials since their titles all began with K, and its paradigmatic version was the KKSBKBT. The obvious question, therefore, to ask would be what new does a reality show like LPB have to offer with larger and more varied constituency of spectator than those of television serials? I suggest that the difference lies precisely in the crucial positionality of LPB: its 'location' at a certain juncture in the history of globalization itself which necessitates addressing the global currency of consumerism, certain globalized modes of televisual representation, and its imperative to indigenize in order to secure its home ground - that of Indian spectator engagement. Thus in LPB marital partner selection becomes a 'playing out in the real' of the tensions within its various constitutive elements: the format of globalized 'reality' show and the demands of the desi. This is what I mean by the 'making of the perfect desi bride.' I hope to elucidate this by charting out some of the issues that I wish to inquire into :
- The imperatives that shaped the adaptation of this global format in LPB
- the process of adaptation that involves a frenzied attempt at creating the 'desi' through the micro narratives within 'reality' episodes in LPB
- the role/ implication of spectator participation in 'reality' television with respect to shaping the narrative, as well as how this participation and engagement is not confined to the 'reality' show only but characteristically creates a spill over into other domains typically that of debate, exchange, opinion formation in cyberspace.
The issues
i) Why did Miditech and Star Plus choose for the Indian spectator a global televised format of an entertainment-cum-game show contest which has as its theme the selection of a 'perfect bride'? Evidently they were confident of its ability to appeal to its viewer constituency by highlighting it as a typically 'Indian' phenomenon. Anupama Mandoloi, Senior Creative Director, STAR Plus succinctly summed up what she regarded as the USP of the show:
Marriage is undoubtedly the most desired attribute in our society. This show presents the concept of marriage in the true Indian spirit where girls marry not just the man of their choice but also a family. .. We hope this show will resonate with everyone in the family because there is something for everyone in this show.
Since this show is a presentation of the concept of marriage in the 'true Indian spirit' it may be worth interrogating what that has come to mean in the contemporary urban/ semi-urban middle-class context. This is also crucial because spectatorial engagement and participation through 'identification' is an integral aspect of the interactive nature of 'reality' television. I propose that LPB's adaptation of a globalized television format on the basis that it will resonate with its Indian viewership stems from identifying and engaging with one of the most significant strands of the urban middle classes narrative of transition - a growing trend/ pattern amongst urban/ semi urban middle-class Indians which revolves around the exercise of individual agency in the choice of marital partner. A detailed discussion of the factors that lead to the rise of this phenomenon is outside the purview of this paper; I would merely suggest that a greater mobility of the middle-class after Liberalization and its engagement in the globalized service sectors its access to certain forms of communication and images created by the global consumer and visual cultures have resulted in a 're-arrangement of its desires'. Typically such re-arrangement involves the exercise of what is perceived as 'individual' choice. Usually such individual choices are expressive of and determined by what is understood as 'romantic' love and desire, notions of which are more often than not, constructed within the paradigm set by its representation in a certain genre of mainstream Bollywood cinema. For the middle -class the potential of actualizing 'romantic' desire has been facilitated by the interaction between the sexes in the institutions of higher education, especially those catering to 'professional' courses and the public sphere of the workplace which may typically require a re-location away from home. Moreover, even when romance may not blossom naturally through interaction in the real social space the upwardly mobile, tech and gadget savvy middle-class have access to matrimonial websites in which the prospective bride and groom can engage in cyberspace and thus exercise agency in making partner selection. However, the hegemonic mode continues to be that of negotiated or arranged marriage where customary laws based on class/caste/ religious community determine the family's selection of the bride and the groom. In such alliances it is usually the groom's family that routinely and systematically subjects young women to humiliation and abuse by exercising its prerogative of rejection. Typically, it is the older woman, the prospective mother-in-law who is entitled to exercise and articulate this right, a role that foregrounds how ideology works by manufacturing consent of women and making them complicit in perpetuating gender inequality, injustice and forms of abuse. I propose that these two modes of selection - the emerging trend of the individual's choice and the dominant one based on family decisions be provisionally categorized as the 'progressive-modern' and the 'traditional-feudal' respectively.
 A cursory glance at the 'format' of LPB would seem to confirm its display of what scholars have in a different context called 'misogyny's embarrassment of riches.' Indeed, as a feminist viewer my knee-jerk reaction to one of the 'elimination' sessions - where the young woman was weeping copiously while mouthing pieties like she had gained a lot from this experience thanks to the help and advice of the various mummyjis-was one of outrage. It seemed to me that was something deeply pernicious in transforming the practice where the groom's family has the right of 'rejection' of the 'bride' into a spectacle of popular public entertainment.
However, a closer look at the other 'reality' episodes revised my opinion: the format of the game - which implies specific rules which have to be adhered to - creates a unique condition for 'renegotiating intimacies.' The hegemony of the groom's family (represented by the mother) is also undercut by the proviso that the 'bride of the week' selected through spectator votes is invincible. This necessarily destabilizes the power-equation between the younger and the older women especially since at some point in the show there is a possibility of reversal of situations with the 'bride of the week' empowered to 'eliminate' the groom. In LPB there are at least two instances in the 'reality' episodes when this occurs.
While at the simplest and most obvious level this is a reinforcement of patriarchy's favourite ploy of playing women off against one another - expressed through the show's advertisement that announces its chief attraction as the spectacle of the 'eternal' 'saas-bahu' battle, (the subject of KKSBKT and many of its off-springs) I would suggest that something more complex is at work. Since all the participants are also contestants in a game show, angling for the prize money, the very format of LPB creates a situation where the mummy has to cow-tow to the potential 'bride' who stands to win. Thus my submission is that in LPB the global format of the game contest ensures that there will be continual negotiation, trade-off between the 'progressive- modern' and the 'traditional- feudal' positions. The show's imperative is not to posit these as entirely antagonistic to each other but rather to create conditions of amicability between the two in the various twists and turns given to the narrative by spectator choices. The possibility that the 'modern' can be accommodated within the traditional valorizes the flexible 'liberal' qualities of the Indian traditional as long as patriarchy does not feel seriously threatened by its subversive potential. Indeed this is the intentional logic of the show, the process involved in the 'making of the perfect desi bride.'
But how does one create this desi, so necessary for spectator identification and involvement, within the format of the 'reality' episodes of LPB? The obvious answer is by appealing to that which is always-already - the existent notion of the desi in the popular imaginary. Thus LPB taps into the pool of images created/ constructed in popular culture industry, typically that of mainstream Bollywood cinema. Within this representation logic, the real in a 'reality' show like LPB is necessarily a re-playing of the unreal, the imagined, the imaginary.
ii) The show claimed that it represents the 'nation' in terms of the profile of the contestant participants: they are introduced as ten most eligible brides and five most eligible grooms chosen from all over India. The obvious question would be what constitutes the criteria of eligibility? The answer is provided by the profile of the participants: they belong predominantly to upper caste, 'professionally' educated, upwardly mobile, middle-class Hindu young men and women from central and western India. There is a complete absence of participants from north-east and south or those belonging to other religious communities; (the exception is Rajbeer Singh who is the son of Sikh parents but does not wear the five Ks, the distinguishing markers of the practicing member. this is important because it is imperative to create a sense of visual homogeneity within the show's participant community). Such selections clearly foreground the show's exclusionist majoritarian politics that frames the true 'Indian' community as a Hindu/ Hindi-speaking nation. It is this nation that on the night of the 'grand finale' of LPB witnessed, as one show-host hyperbolically and hysterically announced, 'history' being made with the nation selecting its first ever 'perfect bride.'
 If the class/ caste / community affiliations of the participants serves as one distinguishing feature of this imagined nation signified through the 'community' of contestants, then its space or territory has to be the mansion - the mahal - where the members of the community reside through the duration of the 'reality' episodes. The politics of this architectural space cries out for an entire separate essay; I shall merely draw attention to the most obvious features that construct it as the desired/ ideal Hindu household for an ideal feudal joint family set up. The most conspicuous feature of the mansion is the centrally located sacral space of a 'mandir' with the idols of Ganesh and a mother goddess. A typical day begins by showing the womenfolk, the brides and the mummies engaging in a puja with the singing of bhajans. During periods of great psychological crisis (as in when they are empowered to eliminate a groom and his mother) the young women take recourse to meditating before the shrines and thus gaining mental peace and stability.
The mansion, clearly has as its model the opulent haveli - complete with pillars, columns, arched doors, elaborate stairways, curving banisters, and of course the mandatory courtyard and terrace - that feature in films like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, (DDLJ), Hum Apke Hain Koun,( HAHK) Hum Saath Saath Hain ( HSSH), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, or the more recent Jab We Met. By sitting itself in this recognizably filmi haveli or mahal LPB signals its close links with this genre of the all -singing, all-dancing, happy joint family. As I have argued earlier, it cannot but do this, though there is something deeply ironic in the deployment of the notion of 'family' in a game show whose contestants must continually be eliminated from the space of the community/ family. Perhaps this image of a cannibalistic family/community serves as a sign of the contradictions that inhere from straining to fit an idea of the genuine desi into a globalized show format.
However, to get back to some of the defining features/ characteristics of this filmi community: the family celebrates with great gusto all Indian (read Hindu) festivals like Diwali, Rakhi, Bhai Duj and Karwah Chauth. This 'tradition' of performance of rituals also marks the television serials, referred to earlier, produced by Balaji Telefilms and shown on STAR Plus. Since LPB's duration was from September to December the only major 'Indian' festival that the participants had the opportunity to celebrate was Diwali; this was done through the dancing of garba and a rangoli competition among the prospective brides.
The principle of the 'reality' episodes, the playing out in the real, of the test of conjugal compatibility requires that the participants live in close proximity. However, since the great Indian tradition entails a strict code of pre-marital chastity the grooms live in a section of the mansion referred to as 'the kunwar quarters' and the brides share their space with the mothers of the grooms. This is 'the mummy mahal' signifying the power of the matriarchs who reign supreme in matters of decision making the most crucial of which concerns the weekly elimination of a bride. The low latticed wall with a wicket gate that separates the two quarters is tellingly referred to as the lakshman rekha, the 'epic' line of chastity that must not be crossed by the participants. If the allusion to the Ramayana and its sacred inviolable space of married chastity seems a tad strange then you heard nothing yet. In an early episode, Hitesh's mummy Sudeshrani Chauhan addresses the grooms as panch pandav going on to elaborate on the character traits of the grooms; while one of young man points out the hyperbolic excesses of this comparison since they are not brothers but rivals, the spectator-audience marvels at the audacious inappropriateness of the allusion to Mahabharata and its patriarchal legitimization of the polyandrous marriage of Draupadi in the context of a monogamous heterosexual couple formation.
Significantly, the young women never visit the male or kunwar quarters; the young men are occasionally allowed entry into the hallowed portals of what they have termed as the 'gulabi mahal' by invitation only; typically such invitations are to bring in the grocery for the women or sometimes to have lunch.
How then does the interaction leading to romantic encounter among the prospective brides and grooms occur in this confined space defined by sexual segregation? The brides and grooms assemble on the terrace of their respective quarters and engage in banter, flirtation or serious 'emotional' exchange across the narrow space that separates the two sections of the household. The deployment of this particular space as conducive to heterosexual intimacy is strongly reminiscent of DDLJ where the clandestine nocturnal meetings between Raj and Simran are conducting on the terrace of the adjoining houses. Also it is in the context of 'romance' a necessary component of LPB's format that one recognizes the role of films like HAHK or HSSH, representative of the category of 'feudal family romance' as proposed by Madhav Prasad. In LPB the idea of the patronizing gaze of the family is literalized through the presence of the watchful mummyjis whose hawk eye, never miss the early signs of burgeoning romance. That this parental vigilance is intended and indeed necessary for the 'narrative' progression is evident from the long sessions of counselling and advice in which the mummyji engages with the 'bride' chosen by her son, or in certain startling reversals in which it is the 'bride of the week' who becomes the mummy's favored candidate for fixing a marriage alliance.
 Yet, what implication does this canny appropriation of potentials of romantic liaison by the groom's mother signal in the larger context of the role of 'romance' especially as it pertains to young women viewers who do constitute a significant section of its spectator? In her analysis of the effect of romance reading on women Janice Radway has suggested that it has however short-lived a therapeutic value: 'By immersing themselves in the romantic fantasy, women vicariously fulfill their needs for nurturance by identifying with a heroine whose principal accomplishment if it can even be called that, is her success at drawing the hero's attention to herself, at establishing herself as the object of his concern and the recipient of his care.'
The genre of mainstream Bollywood films to which LPB continually alludes and claims affinity with, the great 90s romances like DDLJ, HAHK and even the more recent Jab We Met all fulfill this particular fantasy of female viewers, who experience vicariously, through the film's heroine, the sense of being wanted, cared for and desired. Yet, the very logic of the format of LPB seems inimical to a sustained possibility of romantic fantasy: within the span of thirteen weeks the show has to create several sets of permutations and combinations of couples from among the participants. Thus the show is marked by the drama/melodrama of aborted relationships. However, since the show must go on, there has to be a quick rearrangement of desires with 'romantic' interest shifting from the person who has been eliminated to those who still exist.
Thus romantic desire, especially female desire, seems particularly at odds with the values and practices within which it is enfolded in a 'reality' show like LPB. Like the bride, its 'romance' is symbolically central to its project without possessing any 'real' potential; thus the show uses in its title song the theme of female fantasy of achieving a sense of subjectivity through fulfillment of romantic longing and then marginalizes and even subverts it by turning romance into a strategy for advertisement of the major sponsors and their product placement in the 'reality' episodes. Thus the 'bride of the week' is entitled to take the man of her choice for a 'Red Label 'Chai pe Bulaya Hai' session with her mother or sister. Similarly the choreographed 'romantic' outdoor encounter between the couples is an occasion for the application of the Pond's 'romantic' meter. Abhijit has argued that this practice of product placement in telenovelas like JJKN, lends a certain order of plausibility to the realism of a show. when the products. are represented in a text as major agents of change. the whole mise-en-scene of the text emits an air of corporeal genuineness.' I would like to suggest that while this is true for JJKN, where fiction gains the status of the real by the advent of the market into its space the reverse seems to be true of a 'reality' show like LPB in which consumer products which are made to resonate deliberately with the theme of the show creates a sense of the unreal, the fake, the orchestrated and scripted. In fact the show continually produces, intentionally one would guess, clues for the spectator to see that its 'reality' is a highly constructed one based on a pool of pre-existing themes and images, devices and desires.
Yet, for many of the spectators the 'reality' television show like LPB created a promise of presenting what they understood as the experience of real people in real conditions; and one of the recurrent terms used by bloggers and internet users to criticize the show is 'fake.' Their expression of moral outrage and opprobrium was largely directed at the participants who had betrayed them by not revealing their true identity. Thus Rajbeer was an aspiring model who had claimed to be running family business, Pooja Tandon was an actor in Sikh films, and Gurpreet Singh and Swati Bajpayee were similarly connected to the television industry especially the Star Plus channel which made them suspect. This brings me to the penultimate section of my essay understanding the role of spectators in 'reality' shows.
iii) Since spectator engagement and participation, through 'identification' is an integral aspect of the interactive nature of 'reality' television it may be instructive to engage with the target viewership of LPB. This is the upwardly mobile, tech-savvy, middle-class whose 'progressive' quotient is directly proportional to its consumer capability and character, its participation in the domain of 'public opinion' in the forums on cyberspace Reality television affords this consumer-spectator the opportunity to exercise her/his right of individual choice by voting through the short message service of the mobile telephone networks. Did LPB manage to successfully tap into and tickle its spectator constituency? Was there enough buzz around the show in internet forums?
A quick browsing through websites devoted to the show would provide an affirmative answer. Pooja Tandon, Gurpreet Kaur, Priyanka Sharma, Rajbeer Singh, Hitesh Chauhan, and Rumpa Roy had not only become household names but their personality and behaviour traits and codes of courtship conduct were being hotly debated, scrutinized and subjected to great psycho-social analysis by the spectators. Thus by common consensus, the emotionally vulnerable, ready to break into tears pretty Priyanka was definitely honest and had 'character' while Rumpa was the canny opportunist who was merely using this occasion to catapult herself to fame. Equally significant was the flurry of interest evoked by the mothers specially Hitesh's mother Sudeshrani Chauhan who had been voted the 'mummy of the week' for the largest number of times. Sudeshrani, whose heavily made up face (a striking contrast to the other plainly dressed mothers) has an uncanny resemblance to that of Shashikala, the Bollywood actor of yesteryears (in) famous for her roles as the villainous scheming mother in law, had emerged as something of a cultural icon. Though Rajbeer's mother Ravinder Kaur was the more lovable one for her unassuming nature and for exuding the quiet confidence but it was the domineering, courageous, outspoken, aggressive Sudeshrani who seemed to epitomize the new age 'streeshakti.'
 As I have argued earlier, in 'reality' television shows like LPB the issue of selection is problematized by the incorporation, within the very format of the show, of the choice of the consumer-spectator who vote to elect a favorite, 'bride of the week' and 'mummy of the week' through the short message service of mobile phones. Its avowed purpose is an incorporation of the democratic will of the spectator to continually generate the drama of destabilizing the power-equation between the key players-the bride and her prospective mother-in-law - and thus shape its narrative. At the most obvious level of marketing, spectatorial participation is part of the strategy of ensuring revenues. However, one cannot entirely dismiss the larger implication of this deployment of the apparatus of democracy by the late capitalist consumer culture. This mode of interactive television singles out the spectator-consumer as a decision maker whose vote, as in electoral democracy, counts in the 'real' world. In a condition of larger social/ political/ economic instability characterized by political miasma, global economic recession, specters of terrorism, the citizen is reduced to apathy or despondency. This failure of the nation-state creates conditions for the market to enter and restore the rights of the citizen consumer. (Refer to advertisements that address this - the Tata Tea for example in which a political leader on a campaign trail is befuddled when asked what his 'qualifications' as a leader by the politically conscious citizen consumer who of course drinks this special brand of tea.)
Since, as stated earlier, the spectator involvement is not limited to the show itself but spills over into other domains, especially those of internet forums, it thus creates, at least notionally a space for 'public opinion' formation in matters of a practice that belongs to the domain of the feudal traditional. How did this public, who had also exercised its voting rights respond to the grand finale of LPB?
In the end the task of those who write about culture is to engage practitioners in self-appraisal, and direct audiences to things that could possibly interest us, to recognize points of interest as they form. Without this place of vibrancy and independent assertion, the space of independence remains scattered and vulnerable, defensive and divided, with those who succeed clinging to their success.
Conclusion
On the 12th of December 2009, as the bewitching midnight hour approached, the nation had their attention riveted to the STAR Plus television channel watching the grand finale of LPB in which 'suspense' mounted as the show engaged with what appeared to be an unending series of dance extravaganza in which celebrity glamour queens like the oomph oozing Rakhi Sawant (also the guest of honour for the evening) and Malika Arora Khan gyrated to the tunes and lyrics of popular Hindi film till at last the magic moment arrived;. 'the poll results have come in and the winner is..'
The winner Rumpa Roy not only won a stupendous sum of twenty-five lakh rupees but also the whole hearted approval of the groom Hitesh's family; indeed they were already engaged before the final results were declared. This engagement, followed close on heels of a rapid round of romancing between the couple in the 9th week of the show. The alacrity with which the young man and woman drew close was clearly indicative that here was a couple who both had an eye to the main chance. Since the exit of Pooja Tandon (the young woman who had apparently won and then quickly broken Hitesh's heart) one of the major contenders for the 'perfect bride' it was Rumpa who suddenly and dramatically emerged as the key choice. It was Sudeshrani who was instrumental in catapulting Rumpa to her position of advantage. In a counselling episode, after she was selected the 'mummy of the week' Sudeshrani had indicated to Rumpa that she was gradually emerging as her 'choice' ( a selection based on Rumpa's ratings in spectator votes) and it would be to her advantage to turn her attention to her son. The young woman had taken heed of the advice and warning and there she was the first ever 'perfect bride' of India. This is what Ms Mandoloi very perceptively described as the playing out in the 'real' of 'Independent choice subtly driven by the elders as well as the conflict between desire and long-term relationships.'
The lucky couple had love, lucre and a lavish Bollywood style wedding on the studio sets; not only was there huge rejoicing amidst those who had the honour of being present but presumably also in the households of the audience-spectators who had exercised their democratic rights by voting for the 'perfect bride' through the short message service of their mobile phones.
However, the spectator opinion expressed through internet forums after the show was over seemed to indicate that the nation's favoured choice was Priyanka Sharma. It was she who had been voted the 'bride of the week' during the initial stages for three or four consecutive weeks. Priyanka had displayed great integrity and fidelity to her man Rajbeer, whom she had been steadfastly courting from the very beginning. Indeed in the Rajbeer-Priyanka jodi the nation had its Raj-Simran, its Veer- Zara. The duo had been selected as the Pond's Romantic Couple, a title which strengthened their claim to emerging as the nation's Perfect Couple. However, their chances were ruined by the inexplicable entry and resistance to their marriage by Rajbeer's father who played the authoritarian patriarch by refusing to budge from his position. To have Priyanka win the title would militate against the very principle and the format of LPB: one could surely not have a 'perfect' bride who was not accepted by the groom's family, because perfection implies a condition of fulfilling the criteria of choice by the spectator, the groom and the groom's family. Thus, in a sense, even before the grand finale, the results were a foregone conclusion. The selection of Rumpa Roy signals the success of LPB since it is was always-already scripted from within the logic of the show whose advertisement tag line is: 'every boy's dream to have the perfect wife, every mother's dream to have the perfect bahu'.
Swati Ganguly got her PhD from Jadavpur University. She is Reader in English, Department of English and Other Modern European Languages, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. She has worked extensively in the area of Renaissance, feminism, gender studies as well as on media issues. She also writes fiction in Bengali.
This essay should perhaps be read alongside the next one which is about another reality show Sach Ka Saamna
Editor
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top |
|
|
|
|
|
