It is a great deal worse than I had feared. The unprecedented and unbounded ability of Ekta Kapoor to capture not just the eyeballs but the lachrymal glands of the nation, through her chest-heaving, hanky-soaking teledramas would, I had imagined, turn us all (the men included) into virtuous Parvatis and Tulsis, dripping with sindoor, glass bangles from forearm to wrist and eyelashes that could sweep the sky. But new evidence suggests that the damage Ekta Kapoor is perpetrating on the nation goes much, much deeper. New research — and I promise I’m not making this up — indicates that there is a clear correlation between infant crying patterns and adult television viewing patterns. A doctor studied the phenomenon by dividing expectant mothers into three groups — all in their 37th episode (sorry, week) of pregnancy. The first group watched television as if there was no tomorrow, the second group watched television in moderate spells and the third, none at all. It was discovered that the infants born to the first group cried all night demanding to see all the episodes of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, while those of the other two — babies of the abnormal mothers — were happy gurglers who slept peacefully through the night. Don’t knock this study. To my mind it is more vital than classified info on enemy movement across the borders, because it has to do with more than just the security of the nation. It concerns the mental balance of every citizen and the country’s future well-being. If you haven’t already done so I would urge you, therefore, to stop what you are doing for a moment and consider the implications of this extremely disturbing finding. It means, and I say this with utmost responsibility, that every one of us is at risk of being infiltrated by one Ekta Kapoor, who is about to place her gigantic footprint on the genetic physiognomy of this country by the sheer dint of exposing us to unending hours of sindoor sagas. Or should that be sindoor gasas? Imagine, for a moment, the velvet hour approach, and every home in the neighbourhood resounding to the signature wail that heralds Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Imagine expectant mothers settling down for their daily fix of breast-beating. Mihir is on a guilt trip since he has not been faithful to good, kind, faithful, loyal, religious Tulsi, whose glycerine tears are constantly perched on eyelashes made from horsehair. To watch this after having already taken in vast quantities of Parvati’s glycerine offerings, careening down her cheeks like a water fall, is — you would agree— like playing with matches near a keg of volatile emotions. As the mother watches, the baby growing by the minute within her, also settles down in its sac of amniotic fluid for some gripping family entertainment. Om ke bina, main jee na sakti. I cannot live without Om, whispers Parvati to herself, clutching her mangalsutra, and both mother and foetus bring out their handkerchiefs for a good cry. This is chromosome altering activity, if you ask me. As we know, a living cell contains a set of coded instructions telling it what to do. These instructions are packaged in a set of microscopic ribbons called chromosomes. The fertilised egg of a human being contains 46 of these, 23 provided by its father and the other 23 by its mother. The paired set of 46 supply all the necessary instructions for the growth and development of a human being. We also know that among the 23 pairs of chromosomes within each cell there is one pair which determines whether the baby is a girl or a boy, with girls bearing the XX chromosome and boys, the XY chromosome. It is at this point that Ekta Kapoor enters life in the raw with her KKK chromosome and what we have is nothing less than a genetic disaster waiting to happen. Are we then to become mangalsutra-clutching wailers of indeterminate race and indeterminate sex some time in the not-too-distant future, with KKK marking our genetic composition? Frightening prospect indeed for a nation that has just celebrated Diwali.
