When my eye first caught 'Baalika Vadhu', a super-popular TV-soap with a child-couple, I was shocked. I asked a family member how they could show child marriage which was illegal. She said, "arey dekhiyo to sahi, they put socially relevant messages whenever something wrong happens!" I saw it for 15 minutes and was far from convinced. Child marriage had immediately reminded me of "Age of Consent Bill" (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent). I, till date, remain a lone rebel against Baalika Vadhu and shall remain so...
My problem with Baalika Vadhu is that it does not and would not show the ills of child marriage in the right light. It would keep it wishy-washy and to the surface. The problems shown in the soap are not only very sub-dued but many of them are not the 'real' ills of child marriage. Consider, for instance, the opposition of the boy's parents to the girl's going to school. Well, this is not a solitary ill of child marriage, since girls face the same treatment at their parent's home. Or consider the constant restrictions the dadi-saas puts on the paut-bahi, again not very different from those which are put for a full-grown bahu by saas in many other soaps. Or those put by the dadi on the young girl in her own home. The problems depicted are those not primarily of child marriage, but that of gender inequality. Then what are the key problems of child marriage?
It is the sexual complexities of child marriage which are non-existent in the serial. Moreover, the director has no choice but to continue this depiction to preserve the mainstream character of the serial. The general age difference in child marriage which was (and probably is) very prevalent has been totally neglected (ok! shown half-heartedly in Gehna). The pressure of early age pregnancy does not feature. All I see in Baalika Vadhu is this cute couple of Jagiya and Anandi having a fun time. I strongly and sincerely believe that this gives acceptance to the tradition of child marriage and hides the complexities.
The sexual urges of a growing male adolescent which becomes a huge problem for the victim young girl is and will remained undepicted in the serial. The sweet hero Jagiya cannot and will not do this, or rather, cannot be shown to do so. The other challenge for the young bride is to deliver babies, that too males, at a young age. Can the director show Anandi going through this at the hands of her husband and family and die in the course of it? I guess not.
Baalika Vadhu is stuck with the nice sugar-coated image it has given to Child Marriage. I refuse to budge from my stand that it advocates child marriage, despite all the socially-relevant statements it flashes on TV. Its compulsion to remain mainstream and have a chocolaty young love story leads to its bitter failure to bring out the evils of child marriage. I wish the director can be bold enough to turn his sweet Jagiya into a real-world ill-educated adolescent who has a woman he can command over in mind and body as sanctioned by tradition. Only then the real issue with child marriage shall come out. And I will stop my opposition to it!
-- Varun
