The Hindu Business Line : Dear Ekta...

Kudos for adding new dimensions to the status of a `housewife'! At a time when women are shattering the glass ceiling, notching up top positions in every sphere, your `K' serials have performed a yeoman service by creating awareness about women who live in the enclosed walls of their home. Their trials and tribulations in what has long been perceived as `domestic terrain' are an eye-opener.

The ubiquitous housewife is a tag most women loathed to be associated with. But after seeing your serials, we know that she is not antiquated and cut off from reality. She is totally clued up on fashion and takes the trouble to be dressed in bridal finery at all times of the day.

Proof of her artistic talent is the way she dons her make-up. The bindis are creations that would give slithering serpents the jitters. The caked-up complexion is sure to put fairness creams out of business. The heavy and expensive Kanjeevaram saree, worn daily, is indicative of the power she wields over her husband's wallet.

I must compliment your team of researchers and writers who have painstakingly pieced together the many avatars of this contemporary woman. She embodies the qualities that go into making her a complete woman. In keeping with the times, she has expanded her mental and physical faculties, sharpening her survival kit by honing the ability to manipulate, scheme, lie, cheat and distort — all while keeping a poker face.

Talking of faces, your most significant contribution has been in bringing to viewers the `changing face of the Indian woman'. In the span of a split second, your protagonists change their chameleon-type expressions with amazing dexterity. One moment their eyes are downcast, respectfully bowing to an elder, but the next moment they rotate eyeballs, knot eyebrows, flick silky manes, show off perfectly manicured hands with painted talons which would put Dracula to shame and make a hissing sound signalling the complete metamorphosis of the demure housewife into a dangerous viper, one who will avenge at any cost.

The complete switch or rather the co-existence of two extreme personas is masterfully executed with the accompaniment of the perfect background music and lighting. Going by the TRP ratings and TV awards garnered over the last five years, it is to your singular credit that not just Indian viewers but those from the UAE and Pakistan too are getting enlightened about this great evolution of the Indian woman.

We empathise with her, seeing her grapple with problems of domestic intrigue, incestuous alliances, plotting murders and kidnappings, extra-marital affairs, unwed pregnancies and property-related disputes. We pray to see her vindicated as she fakes her death, masterminds her revenge and goes through perfectly executed plastic surgeries, with the regularity of a common cold, allowing her to come up with brand new identities. Indeed, you have an uncanny ability to make impossible things so achievable and real. It is so heartening to see this modern woman finally shedding the regressive prototypes, which the sati Savitris, Sitas and Radhas of yore propagated.

If your multiple storylines are to be believed, every middle-class woman belonging to a familial set-up must be a home-breaker, havoc creator, ace plotter, meddlesome maniac and score settler. She is no longer chained to the images of the past where she had to be a snivelling cry baby, one who made all the sacrifices, forgoing personal pleasures, forgetting and forgiving insults that were heaped on to her for no fault of hers. Thank you so much for giving us this new avatar of the modern and undaunted Indian woman.

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