TV’s ‘Detective Bahus’: Why Must She Balance a Belan and a Gun?

If you’re making a show about women detectives, why emphasise their ‘bahu’ roles when the same isn’t done for men?

(Photo Courtesy: YouTube screenshot; image altered by The Quint)

There’s little that goes down with Indian TV soap-viewing that doesn’t come with a “Where’s my cerebrum at?” I mean, you probably thought you’d ridden out the worst of second-wave TV (you know, post the Tulsis and Mihirs) – when naags and naagins started doing the shimmy on your screens. Fat chance, that. Welcome the new(er) age of mainstream television: the ‘detective bahus’. Yes, they’re a thing and if SAB TV has its way, they’ll hit your screens no later than the following Monday. A trio of spandex-clad women are shown in three different trailers (one for each of the ladies) fighting the baddies with all they’ve got – UNTIL the pager beeps and the ‘other line of duty’ calls. It’s usually an irascible mother-in-law awaiting the bahu’s return with a load of laundry.

(GIF Courtesy: YouTube/ColorsTVPromo)

Here’s the deal: the kicking the ass part? Fantastic. Do the trio look good while they’re at it (even if we were to blindside the bodysuit-action-woman playing to the male-gaze-stereotype)? You’ve got it. The only problem? Gems like these: the dad-in-law turns to the bahu (who, after answering a beeping pager, has turned up immaculately dressed in a saree to serve her husband’s family at dinner) and asks: “Sirf baingan ka bharta banaya?” To which, the bahu replies: “Nahi, uska bhi!”

There is usually an irascible mother-in-law awaiting the bahu’s return with a load of laundry. (Photo Courtesy: YouTube screenshot)

The other two trailer videos don’t do much for the cause either, with one woman (possibly a sister-in-law) rushing in after her pager and being asked to sing in front of prospective ladke walleh (“Beta, kuch gaake sunao?”) As for the third, she’s called into laundry duty. The tag line that serves as the final flourish (and the final nail in the coffin)? “Bado ke aashirwaad se, ghar bhi sambhaale aur desh ke dushmano ko bhi!” (Blessed by the elders, these women manage their households while flouncing the nation’s villains).

That should have you rightly hooked.

The ‘Bharta-Makers’ and the ‘Door-Breakers’

One Twitter user, in the ensuing days since the release of the trailer(s), summed it up thus:

Because, why else would you choose to make a “detective” show with three suspiciously Charlie’s Angels – looking women (they’re at least dressed the part) and then let spill a whole ladle of daal tadka on it? Funny, but I don’t remember ACP Pradyuman – arguably India’s ‘oldest’ detective – wringing laundry, while also winking at the screen to let you know he’s surreptitiously hidden a body in the backyard. Or the smaller wigs – Daya or Abhishek; I’m scratching my head to eke out the epithets of ‘good husband’ and ‘bharta-making detectives that they must clearly have been showered with sometime in CID’s 19-year-long history.

While at home on a recent vacation, I watched as the mother stayed hooked to the telly and caught up on her latest obsession: ‘Goyenda Ginni’. A show with uncanny similarities, this Zee Bangla ‘detective soap’ has been on for months, and as mummy confessed, is quite the rage. The protagonist, played ably by actor Indrani Haldar, shifts between the roles of private investigator and barir bou (ghar ki bahu) with ineffable ease. But, rack my brains as I might, stretching them back to old detective favourites on Bengali telly, I cannot recall a Feluda struggling with ghar ke kaam-kaaj – or a Byomkesh fiddling with the knots of his dhoti, apologising for his lateness to the party. Or, if that’s too ancient for you, not a word of balancing acts for all the Ebar Shabors that Tolly lead Prosenjit superbly played.

Detective bahus that needs must juggle the home and the crime. (Photo Courtesy: YouTube screenshot)

An Age-Old Debate

The point is, if you’re going to be empowering and craft a niche in the TV industry – because, god knows we need it – why not stick to your guns and have the ladies toting theirs? Why play to the masses and build in a belan, a bucket of clothes and a line of grooms just to emphasise acceptance? Why can’t a woman on television be just a private eye – refusing to placate sensibilities and shifting between saree and bodysuit, knuckle-duster and the microwave?

Also Read: Stop Calling Indian TV ‘Regressive’ – You’re Part of the Problem

It’s true: often makers and channels don’t stop riding the wave simply because they’re scared of falling (and failing). Remember Aadhe Adhoore (where the adulterous female lead was killed off when audiences started baying for her blood) and the Sonali Bendre-starrer Ajeeb Daastaan Hai Ye (which Ekta Kapoor had abruptly taken off the air, explaining that “audiences weren’t ready for progressive shows”)?

Ajeeb Daastaan Hai Ye starring Sonali Bendre was abruptly taken off the air. (Photo Courtesy: YouTube screenshot)

It can all boil down to the age-old TV debate: story vs TRP. But if you’re debating to eternity which came first, the chicken or the egg, you’ll never get a television uprising off the ground.