Are we really started dreaming like Daily soaps serials?

Prime-time television in India is not really known for sensible content. Especially the soap operas. I have never been a fan but one tedious evening, I switched on the telly and sat through one “saas-bahu” serial after another.

What was it about family dramas that kept millions of Indian women glued to their TV sets each evening? I intended to find out .In one such episode, a mother-in-law laments the loss of an unborn grandchild.

“We have lost our grandson and our daughter-in-law cannot bear a child after this. Now we will never have a grandson to take the family name forward.”

Can the television industry shrug off its responsibility so easily in a country where killing of female foetuses is common and preference for sons runs deep?

In a report last year, the United Nations estimated that 2,000 unborn girls are illegally aborted every day in India.

As the story of one serial after the other unfolded on screen, I realized that to be the “perfect” woman on Indian television, one needed to be a docile housewife and sacrifice everything for the family’s happiness.

Experts warn that fewer women will spark a demographic crisis in India which could lead to more crimes against women — as there would be fewer left to marry.

I am not asking television producers, many of whom are women and lead very different lives than that of their characters on the telly, to broadcast sermons on female feticide.

But it will take them just a few changes in their scripts to conjure up a healthy dose of daily entertainment — without sending their audiences the wrong message.