Kyunki this isn’t a 'real' Gujarati family

AHMEDABAD/RAJKOT: There was a time when family values were set not by Manu, but by Tulsi and Mihir Virani, Indian television’s first couple. Prime time was synonymous with family values and lofty morals. But, three years down the line, with vice overtaking virtue, adultery, back-stabbing and bitter family squabbles have smeared the image of the Viranis in the serial "Kyunki...", and people across Gujarat are crying foul.
The Viranis of Rajkot may not be related to the fictional Viranis of TV’s ‘Soapland’, but they are perturbed whenever Tulsi is confronted with a DNA report that says her son was not fathered by Mihir.And, it’s not just Saurashtra — the region from where the "Kyunki ..." family hails. People all over the state say the serial has taken a blasphemous direction and is painting a "distorted image" of the Gujarati family in other parts of the country.
"There is a big difference between real and reel life. What is being dished out now as storyline is total fiction and has little to do with how a joint family conducts itself in Saurashtra or anywhere else in Gujarat.
The portrayal of the Virani family is a vilification of the joint family tradition. This is wrong," says Rajshri Virani of Rajkot,who is over 60 and stays with three generations of her family.
"The episodes that showed the family raising a finger at their ‘bahu,’ Tulsi, alleging that she had illicit relations with an outsider and even had a love child from him are disgusting. No family in Gujarat would be so intolerant that they would put their ‘bahu’ through such humiliation. Our culture wouldn’t allow that," says Hansa Nensonaiya, a retired government employee in Rajkot. Nensonaiya, an ardent ‘Kyunki ...’ fan, who has not missed a single episode of the serial till now, feels there is something amiss about the way morals are being thrown to the wind.
But, Apara Mehta, the popular mother-in-law in the serial, feels that the twists and turns were necessary for the serial to attract eyeballs. "Conflict is an essential component of any story and is required to make it progress.
People would be bored if everything was hunky dory," she argues. "A lot of people ask me what happened to the once-happy family and why have so many vamps descended on the serial. I tell them that life is a mixed baggage of positive and negative happenings. And, if one is looking for morals, one should emulate Tulsi and not the Payals and Priyankas, who are out to destroy the image of the family," says Mehta.
However, this may not satisfy those perturbed by the cracks in the picture-perfect Virani frame. Ahmedabad-based actor-writer Vinay Dave believes that the social aberrations in the story are sending wrong signals.
"The portrayal of women has been in bad taste," says Dave. "The younger generation, too, has been shown in a bad light. They have been portrayed as frivolous and easily influenced by the material world," feels Harshida Avlani, a resident of Rajkot, and an avid "Kyunki..." viewer.