By Dishi Solanki:
When I was a kid programs that interested me were something like Bournvita Quiz Contest or may be something on Discovery (pretty boring and geeky of me… I know!). But those were the years when the trend of “reality shows” was not much into fashion. Today, we have more than 600 channels to surf and innumerable shows. Over the span of mere a 7 to 8 years a drastic change has been witnessed in the field of media. It has gone influential. Today, it is believed “Jo Dikhta Hai Woh Bikta Hai!” and the media is ready to show anything and everything.
So, with this flying time even my taste had to change. Nowadays the very show which makes me sit back on my seat is Emotional Attyachar. With a tag line of “This Time Think Twice” it surely is a show full of emotions on a sizzler plate with fumes of burning love. The main objective of the show is to test if your partner is loyal to you or not. A person can ask the show runners to check if their partner is cheating. The crew would then follow the “suspected cheater” like a detective armed with cameras and microphones. On finding that a partner is cheating, the crew allows the couple to confront each other. The whole episode is then shown on television. Emotional Attyachar injects real people to allure the suspect to cheat. So, Emotional Atyachar does not seek to look if a person is cheating but whether the person can possibly cheat.
We all savor the plight when the tail of a cheater is on fire with a feeling of empathy towards his or her partner. But we seldom think of ourselves being in the same condition. How can we afford to laugh when being aired on national television for shameful reasons? The question is whether Emotional Attyachar is liable for damages to an individual’s personal life.
Their aim is to allure a suspect to cheat and record rather than keeping a check on his routinely habits. Plotting the third person with the very aim of forcing the suspect to cheat is surely going to break some good old houses. We hardly find any episodes with loyalty being proved because of pre-framing. The shocking revelation is that people who have cheated are made to sign a consent form after being shown the footage to air the program. This very much proves the point of things being fixed with a boost to personal motives (fame and money). Indrajit Ray, CEO UTV justifies “the show is about millions of youngsters who go through several heart-breaks and so we help them deal with it”. But according to me they have stricken the right chord to top the the TRPs. Soon after the airing of this program I came across cases of relationships breaking more frequently due to the urge of being disloyal or the inability to trust their partner. Anything shown to us indubitably creates a long lasting impact on us. Today we preach these shows and put the same into action without pondering over the repercussions lined up. Fidelity is an absolute requirement in most relationships but a test of that on national television cannot be acceptable. This show in no sense can be called as being for the benefit of the community.
In my opinion, such shows should be banned in order to stop the bruising impact being created on young minds. This show is indirectly obligating the youth to embrace wrong steps. Relationships being frail as a cute little heart cannot be brought back to shape once broken. The very logo of the show exhibits a broken heart with bandage to mend and flaws to rub. So my friends I am no one to judge what is right or wrong. It is gritty stuff, and there’s an applauding audience watching it (including me). This is not a provocation to you all to keep your eyes off the show but to act more sensibly without the mind draining drama affecting your harmonious lives.
The writer is a Correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz and also the Vice President – Talent Management of AIESEC.