Right Parents, Wrong Child

If you want to know the worst parenting example, you must watch this serial called Uttaran on Colors channel. I must tell you that I didn't immediately take to this serial, as the title of it sounded quite forboding to me. But as TV serials are nowadays, it just takes you just one episode to get you hooked to a program. And so the same happened to me.



Before I present my review, let me just summarise the story. The story is basically of two girls who begin with being good friends. One being the employer's daughter, Tapasya, and the other being the housekeeper's daughter Ichcha. Tapasya is a spoilt kid who is very possessive of her parents. She also loves her friend, Ichcha. Events take a turn when Tapasya's father, Jogi Thakur, is responsible for the death of Ichcha's father. In order to pay penance for his "sins", The Thakurs, Jogi and Divya, take over the bringing up of Ichcha. Obviously, to a kid as old as Tapasya, the change is evident when she finds that she no longer is her parent's pet and the attention she wholly deserves as a kid is divided. The love for her friend now lessens enough to be replaced by envy and consuming jealousy. How she managed to veil it from her parents and Ichcha is a testament to the control over her emotions. She tries various methods to get rid of Ichcha but is stopped by her own parents, resulting in the increase of hatred towards Ichcha.


Time passes and the girls grow up. The housekeeper is actually well provided for, thanks to her late husband's insurance policy. She could have shifted out of the Thakur's mansion to live in her own modest home. That would have saved a lot of angst. Anyway, she has been with the Thakurs long enough out of gratitude (for what?). Tapasya is the same spoilt rich one, with her lifestyle revolving around discos and latenight parties. She has no value for virtues like sanskar, family and so on. Love comes in the form of Veer, son of another richer family. He has come as an alliance for Tapasya. But, as predicted, she finds him boring and Mr Goody-Two-Shoes. Naturally, she has no interest in him and in that vanity, she "hands him over" to Ichcha on knowing that Veer and Ichcha are attracted towards each other. But with time, she realises what a mistake she has done by doing so. She has lost the chance to be called "thakurain", the riches, the rights of the daughterin-law of the Bundela family. She has lost out on the expensive gifts that Veer showers on Ichcha like a car, diamond jewellery.

So she decides to get him back. This is where she gets twisted in her mind, and plot various cheap tactics to ruin every ritual that comes Ichcha's way like replacing Ichcha mehndi troussoue with one of her cheap dresses, ruining the chunri that Ichcha's mother woven since Ichcha's childhood, pretending to trip from the stairs so that Ichcha's mehndi is ruined, and so on.

This is the last straw and I would like to commend the writers to bringing this moment of stupidity in everyone's life at the same time. It is miraculous how people can be so stupid is beyond my understanding. How can the whole gathering not think, "why is the bride taking so much time to come down? Surely, no bride takes so much time! Also, how come whoever went to fetch the bride has not returned.. for almost half an hour" (I am talking serial time). These guys spent two and a half episodes just upstairs with the whole gathering waiting for the bride. In the meantime, why didn't Veer say anything to anyone about the conversation between himself and Tapasya?

One important lesson in parenting should be taken from this serial is always tell your kid about the changes that are going to take place in their life, specially as serious as semi-adopting her friend. Prepare her for such an event. That is exactly what the Thakurs didn't do. Instead, they handed Tapasya over to her Nani who did nothing but poison her mind against Ichcha. Sure, you may realise how important a grandparent to a child, but that doesn;t make your responsibility any less. You must see the what the kid is going through, keep a close watch on the mood changes in the child.

So, if Tapasya is going through a twisted time in her life, how come her parents didn't notice? Did it ever occur to them to ask her why she rejected Veer? Did they discuss her ambitions, her wishes? No. They were busy planning Ichchha's kanyadaan, more for their own sake than for Ichchha's.

All in all, they were good parents to Ichchha. Sadly, they are not Ichchha's parents. They are Tapasya's parents and in being that, they failed in their duty.