The first episode, for me, started off on shaky grounds this season, making me feel a bit disappointed.
But the latest episode which was an eye-opener, has made me realize that the makers of the show have their heart in the right place still..
I’m yet to watch its previous 2 episodes which I have heard were just as brilliant. Off to see them..
Now I have been a huge huge advocate for this show. It has been a show which has had its heart in the right place from the word go. I remembering feeling immensely hopeful and positive after watching its very first episode in the previous season and then the subsequent ones.
As for Aamir Khan, the man behind this show, he is someone who has earned my respect for the sheer way he has chosen to use his celebrityhood in the right manner. For someone who has made a brand so bankable out of his own name by the movies he has done, he could have gone about using his stardom to endorse a cola here, a satellite TV network there, perform at a wedding here or do an item number there. But he has chosen to use his name, his star-power to set an example of a different kind, a more inspiring kind, IMO.
By touching upon some of the most pressing issues plaguing our country today, through his programme, Aamir has done his bit of shaking, if not all, but a lot of us from deep within our conscience and make us come face to face with our society’s crippling mindsets.
And for that alone, he deserves a pat in the back!
So, to come back to the show, when the promos of the second season started to show up on channels it was obvious that I was looking forward to it with some fair bit of expectations.
It ran its first episode yesterday. Oh no, I wont say that I was disappointed. But I certainly wished by the end of it that it had something more to offer. Unfortunately I could not catch the whole show. But I did watch it enough to make me wonder if focusing on so many rapes and retelling the horror stories was all that necessary, if by the end of it there was hardly any solution given.
Dont get me wrong. Yes we are well aware that women are not safe in our country. We have umpteen incidents to back that up. And I am glad that more and more survivors are coming out in the open to talk about the brutalities they had to endure. In fact I am all for bringing all those stories out in the open and making everyone of us aware.
But the show that I saw yesterday mostly seemed to focus more on feeling sorry for the rape victims and on wondering further as to why such incidents were on the rise, than finding answers to those questions. The show had me feeling sorry for the girls who had been mercilessly raped and left to die for, sorry for the families who had been tortured by the police time and again because they went to complain against their daughters’ rapists, sorry for the girls and their families who were harassed by some doctors who insisted on conducting some sickeningly intrusive tests repeatedly.
I wish that the show had also focused as much, if not more, on how to make the country safer for women instead of just drawing out statistics about the alarming number of rape cases registered, and some 89000+ cases still pending with the police. I wish they had, for instance, suggested about including a basic self-defence class in schools and colleges, or maybe introduced a martial-arts institute in their show, like how they introduce other charitable organizations, so that parents could be driven to send their daughters for a self-defence class. Or they could have provided a helpline number which anyone could access to when in trouble. I’m being pretty vague in my suggestions I know. But this is just to give an idea about what I was hoping to see come out of the show.
I wish, instead of zooming in on the rape victims’ families and their traumas (not to mention the teary eyed faces of the audience each time a terrible incident was being told), they had tried to capture shots of those culprits too who were responsible for those traumas. And by culprits I dont just mean the rapists. I mean each and every policeman, each and every doctor, each and every lawyer who went all out tormenting the girls and their families.
Let us not be vague in pin pointing blames on some random nameless doctor who insisted on the intrusive test or an unknown lawyer who had the most uncomfortably personal questions to ask the girl while ‘claiming for justice’ in the court or some faceless policeman who refused to attend to a complaint. If the show aims to make a difference, I’d urge them to bring that doctor out in the open, so he can be barred from practicing further, I’d urge them to divulge the name of that policeman who refused to lodge an FIR in the first place, so he can be stripped off his uniform. Bring that lawyer to the fore and disbar him.
Frankly I am tired of hearing about the sufferings of the victims and feeling hopeless and helpless. For once I insist on the focus getting shifted to the criminals, shaming them publicly and tormenting them in the most deserved manner.
Anyway I hope the forthcoming episodes will have something more conclusive to feel hopeful about.
I can stand crappy saas-bahu serials, but I am afraid I cant stand cynics who are out there on the look out for the slightest opportunity to snub even a ripple of change.
Here I was feeling all charged up and positive after watching Satyamev jayate, giving full on thumbs up to Aamir for bringing to the fore such pressing social issues like female foeticide and there I was coming across articles dissing the show already, likening it to social pornography and what not! 🙄
I mean why cant people just appreciate the fact that here is a show which is truly tapping on issues which need some fierce addressing? Yes I agree these are issues which we see and read about every other day, we already know about them, but if someone of Aamir’s stature, with such mass reach is able to bring the awareness on a far wider level then why should it not be given a thumbs up? Why not? Wouldnt you take notice if someone was to tell you that sex-selective abortions are not just a practice in rural areas among illiterate people as is perceived, but they are as rampant among educated urban families?
Ok so we may not be able to completely reverse the male-female ratio of 1000:914 or set up a fast track court immediately, but…
if even one person has been affected by the stories and statistics shown, affected enough to think twice before suggesting a sex-selective abortion to a woman
if even one family, one husband, one daughter-in-law, one mother-in-law has been able to take home the fact that a gender of the child is not determined by the mother rather its the Y chromosome of the father that decides the gender after all,
if even one person has realized the pointlessness of cursing women for the birth of a girl child, the need to embrace a daughter just a he/she would embrace a son
if even one person has been propelled into thinking that the birth of a baby girl is to be celebrated, and not cursed
if even one person has been driven to take that step out of an abusive relationship and make a worthy life,
if even one sting operation has managed to get the court to sit up and move in the direction of expediting the case and bringing the culprits to book,
if even one voice has been heard..
then in my opinion this show is worth its run. For…every voice counts. Every single voice counts.
No amount of awareness is truly enough till the time we have an answer to all the pressing issues plaguing our society, our nation. So till the time we have achieved that any awareness howsoever big or small is worth its time, I feel.
I know its too early to know for sure if the show will grab the right attention but if it intends to cover the issues with the same kind of seriousness and sincerity that was so evident in the first episode then we can hope for a huge wave of change in the mindsets of people of our country I think.
this heart-rending song which wells me up every time I hear.
Perceptions 