Stealing jewellery and incriminating the heroines, just so they go to jail – is something very common in Tamil serials. Typically, these wicked women dress well and stay at home, sometimes they go to sleep with their heavy jewellery and make up intact. Aranmanai Kili’s Durga plots to take revenge on her aunt Meenakshi in ever so many ways including plotting against her son Arjun’s wedding. In Nenjam Marappathillai, antagonist Sathya plots various ways to take revenge on heroine Saranya for marrying her ex-boyfriend Vikram, and that includes setting up a rowdy to kill her. Earlier there was a murder attempt on Parvathi by the same woman – which she miraculously escapes. In Sembaruthi, the antagonist kidnaps the heroine (Parvathi), keeps her in a temple, and disrobes her so she would not escape. The weird ways of wickedness: From stopping weddings to plotting murders, the evil women of Tamil serials are capable of doing just about anything. (Though of course, of late she has been showing some sign of rebellion). Bhagya Lakshmi in Lakshmi stores (Sun TV) will do all the work at home, silently suffering the insults heaped on her by her sister-in-law, yet outside home, she is a fighter who would expose the antagonist Union Minister. Picking up a fight, Jaanu ensured that the arrogant woman not only apologised but also paid the old man for his medical expenses. All it takes is a whiff of fresh air to bring out the tigers in them.Īranmanai Kili’s heroine Jaanu would suffer innumerable abuses at home silently without any retaliation, yet on the streets she wouldn’t stand by as a poor old man is hit by an arrogant woman in a car. Several heroines in Tamil serials seem to incurably suffer from that syndrome.
The Veetla Eli Veliyila Pulisyndrome: In the 1991 film Veetla Eli Veliyila Puli (A mouse in the house, but a tiger outside) Janakaraj is a henpecked husband and yet at office, he is seen as a terrorising boss. She calls him sir, sleeps in the kitchen, and continues to wait for his acceptance, at his beck and call.
In Aranmanai Kili, Jaanu is forced to marry Arjun – the physically disabled son of her father’s employer Meenakshi. Throughout their relationship, Parvathi calls him Periaiah (senior master). In Sembaruthi, Aadhi falls in love the domestic worker Parvathi. Yet Semba continues to call Karthik Chinnaiya (junior master). In Raja Rani, hero Karthik is forced to get married to the domestic worker Semba and after some ice-breaker episodes, the couple fall in love. Perpetuating hierarchies: Serials encourage liberal use of degrading terms like Velaikkari (to refer to a domestic worker) even if the domestic worker has graduated to playing heroine. In Priyamanaval (Sun TV), the drama continues after the wedding – bride Selvi’s family comes to know that groom Kumar’s brother faked horoscopes to get them married, and the couple continue to live separately. In Kanmani (Sun TV), the heroine’s wedding is stopped twice – both times after some drama. In the hugely popular Sembaruthi (Zee Tamil), the wedding again happened amid drama, with the hero tying the knot to the domestic worker he is in love with, hoodwinking his mother. Not that other channels lag behind with this trope. In most cases, including Nenjam Marappathillai (Vijay TV), Raja Rani(Vijay TV), Aranmanai Kili (Vijay TV), the hero and the heroine get married forced by circumstances. And sometimes, the drama continues even after the wedding. Weddings cannot happen without some drama: Sometimes, they don’t happen despite the drama. And then there are patterns – some of which travel across channels. Perhaps they have gone from bad to worse. Over two decades since Tamil serials started capturing the imagination of the middle classes, little or nothing has changed. Ever since Tamil channels started airing serials, portrayal of women has always vacillated between two extremes – either an epitome of sacrifice, or the personification of evil. Tamil serial terrain is not all that unfamiliar to someone like me.
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