Over two hundred studies and over 2,500 books and articles have been published so far which examine the effects of violence in entertainment media on human behaviour. It has been blamed for causing psychological damage to children and leading to a rise in violent youth culture. But there are other forms of media related influence on human behaviour that are hardly ever mentioned or discussed. Take the example of Hindi TV serials, which actually tend to affect our mothers and aunties rather than children and youth.

Usually a multitude of these never-ending soaps are shown on the Indian channels every evening, with repeats usually aired the next day, at a target audience of housewives, auntijis and sometimes even unclejis. I’m sure we’ve all been told by our mothers at some point, with ample threat of retribution if not done properly, to record these serials one evening because she has to go to a wedding. Or to have to endure watching one on the small kitchen tele as our dinner is served. This article is the result of such a dinner and the discussion it led to.

I’ll leave out the argument of the mind numbing boringness and repetitiveness of these TV serials, and the fact that they always seem to be set in rich, upper class business families with big palatial houses where guys always wear suits regardless of the season (come to think of it most of these serials never show a change of season). After all, my mothers and aunties find the things that I watch just as boring and repetitive as I find these serials.

What does concern me however is the bleak vision of womanhood these serials represent. These soaps are generally set in familial settings not too dissimilar from the average British Hindu household, although maybe not the big palatial houses. And just about every soap of its kind seems to have a plot involving a bad mother-in-law or a scheming wife trying to separate the husband from the family or sister-in-laws at each others throat. And the constant repetition of this similar negative stereotype of woman as the seductress, as a house breaker and what not only goes to reinforce that negative image.

And the target audience being women, the worst comes when they themselves internalise these negative stereotypes and act out according. And when I say act accordingly I don’t mean act like the scheming wife, or bad sister-in-law but get paranoid about those around them acting that way. And when you treat those around you with suspicion, it isn’t surprising that the feeling is reciprocated which then only serves to reinforce the ideas further.

Just sit down and think about it sometime. Take time out to glance at the plotlines of some of these soaps and you’ll notice the domestic issues and familial problems in your family (and you know we all have them) resemble eerily these plotlines. You may even have heard someone say that the other person was acting “just like that character in that soap”.

Now it could be said that maybe instead of life imitating these soaps it’s the simpler option of these soaps imitating life. But in today’s world television is not simply induced by prevalent notions, but it exerts influence and alters popular notions as well.

And yes - surely watching these programs occasionally (or any program for that matter) should have no effect psychologically. But watching the same thing, the same negative and bleak image of womanhood, aired to your TV day in and day out, the psychological affects takes place over a period of time and through endless repetition and on people who aren’t necessarily stupid (although we may like to think they are).

But unfortunately in the end, I can’t see a way out of this. As my mum said to end the discussion we were having “I have to watch something on the TV - and this as all there is”. We'll have to hope and it may well be that just being aware of the situation (and also making the target viewers aware) might help to counter the psychological effects and familial problems caused by these Hindi TV Serials.