Emotional Atyachar

I was scrolling through the channels last evening and stopped when I saw a graphic visual of a red heart breaking on screen and the words “Emotional Atyachar” coming out of the broken heart. I have heard of this reality show a number of times, but have never watched it.

Fifteen minutes through it and I was trying to figure out the point of this show. For those of you who haven’t watched it, this is a show where a heartbroken girl/boy comes over and tells her/his story. The cast and crew of Emotional Atyachar, enacts the story for the viewers’ benefit and through it tries to give a message:  Don’t trust men even though you “love” him. Don’t trust girls because they are likely to go ahead and get pregnant with your best friend’s child. Don’t trust your best friend because s/he will go ahead and fall in love with your lover.

I was so intrigued by the idea of this show, that I spent some time Youtubing some previous episodes of the same programme. In one of them, the girl was talking about how she found out that her boyfriend was “flirting” with her best friend, by checking his text messages.  I was left wondering how jobless can the girl be, that she spent “30 minutes” trying to look through his text messages and then taking a back-up of all these text messages on her laptop.  (Mind you. To spy over someone you need to be technologically advanced. It would have been a failed attempt if I would have tried it. I am seriously in awe of the girlfriend.) In another episode, the girlfriend was cheating the boyfriend. She had slept with his room-mate and the boyfriend found that out when she was pregnant and had told him that it was the boyfriend’s child she was carrying. The boyfriend knew it wasn't his, because as he proudly claimed on camera, “humlog eksath sote the, but mein ek pillow ko hug kiye bina so nahi sakta. Toh aap samajh sakte ho, k humare beech kabhi kuch ho hi nahi sakta.” (we used to sleep together but I cannot fall asleep if I can’t hug a pillow. So you know, nothing could have happened in between us.) I pity the girlfriend really! The poor thing might have tried to seduce the boyfriend, and when she failed, she went ahead and happily slept with the room-mate. Justified she was, I must say.

There were many other stupid problems. (I am telling you, it is highly addictive. Not because they talk about serious things, but because it gives you a good laugh.) I was amused and disgusted at the same time by two things. Firstly, the youths, the “future of our nation” are so helplessly jobless, that they would come on such shows (look at the name), and talk about their “personal problems.” Secondly, how trivial their problems are.

They are heartbroken and depressed because they “loved” someone, and that person cheated on them.  Mind you they are “depressed”. I wonder what would the child on the street who has got no shelter to sleep would have to say about it. What would the three year old, for whom, being loved means  two chapattis and some curry, has got to say about this “depression.”

The main problem lies in the fact that we are privileged. We are privileged to sit and claim that we “love” and we “care”.  And by love and care we mean holding hands and roaming about in shopping malls. We are privileged to refuse to look in to the depth of these words.  We are privileged to shed tears over stupid silly problems about not being “loved”. About not being “needed”.  About our “loved ones” cheating on us.

It is funny, how the thin, hungry, homeless 3 year old still smiles at the world, while the rich, fat 30 year old, sulks and cries all the time. I wonder, if being happy and content is inversely proportional to being rich and privileged. I am sure the less privileged would look at this show, smile and say, "Atyachar it is."