The rich are always seen coming down these magnificent staircases, arrogance writ large on their faces. They do not believe in banks or lockers — they carry all their jewellery on their selves and whenever they have to pay somebody, which happens more often than you'd suspect, the wads of currency notes are there within easy reach.

Chintamani (of "Nambikkai") wearing her pallu over the left wrist, often stands on the upper landing eavesdropping on lesser mortals, who are foolishly giving themselves away in her house. Prabhavati, of the "Chitti" fame, is another who descends and climbs staircases as she weaves her next plot. They have their minions who have hardly another existence besides their selfish and motivated support of the villains of the piece.

There are other serials and other staircases but the villains are all the same, labelled and obvious, with set gestures and very recognisable intrigues.

And the poor? They are the salt of the earth, full of compassion, ready to share the last morsel. Daughters sacrificing conjugal happiness to run to the succour of ageing fathers, emotionally parting with their kidneys to save lives, daughters-in-law bearing the worst treatment with admirable patience and treating the husband and in-laws with never-exhausted tenderness. But the mothers-in-law are almost invariably monstrous and when there is a rare exception to this rule, it is the daughter-in-law who has to be the unkind, grabbing, unloving woman who separates the son from the parents.

If good and evil were so unmixed in real life, no one could be misled by any intrigue. The poor women are always busy, wiping off the sweat of their labour with the ends of their pallus as they rush hither and yon fulfilling various duties, when the bejewelled ladies, who come down those impressive staircases, thwart them.

And they all cry. Since many successful serials are dubbed into other languages, you can hear them cry in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam. The same women appear in all the serials and you are often hard put to differentiate the plotlines and characters between avalanches of commercials. But the fact that most established actresses play the same role in the serials, helps a bit. One of them called Roja in one serial, looks and behaves in exactly the same way in every serial I have tried watching. She has coloured her hair too and the brown over black enters every household of which she is a part and threatening to break up. She has light-coloured eyes to boot, what with the availability of coloured contact lenses in green and blue.

If the enormous sway of "Chitti" and its lead artistes is any indication, TV serials and artistes who act in them, have an immensely loyal following, whose real life ideas are fashioned by what they see on their television screens. They spend time not only watching these `oh-so-similar' plots acted out by the same artistes (yet another riddle: with obviously too few dubbing artistes, you have either a string of characters speaking in the same voice or the same person speaking in different voices in different serials, sometimes even in the same serial at different times!) but also review for prizes to be won, connect with actors and actresses on the telephone and publicly come out with the same inane statements and the most intrusive personal questions on subjects like marriage plans. Love and marriage dominate the plots, family ties are depicted without any depth and tears flood the sets while emotion and sentimentality outplay logic. Family feuds and vendetta is another staple.

Language has been twisted out of shape. The women lisp even at an advanced age they are eternally asked "to take rest". Tenderness and affection are often conveyed by grown up sisters and brothers, reconciled spouses, mothers and sons all pressing dollops of food into each other's mouths... Where does this world exist?

Eve teasing and sexual harassment turning to love are another misleading stock-in-trade. `Liberated' and `modern' women are rarely depicted as good wives or daughters; the female captains of industry are either superwomen like Chitti or unscrupulous schemers like Chintamani and Prabhavati. The recent trend to have criminal elements entering even the most simplistic `family drama' and then khaki uniforms in several frames, is another disturbing trend as is men being reduced to wimps or figures of fun because of the women who dominate their lives.

The media is increasingly defining popular culture. Television and related technologies play a potent role in socialisation and defining of gender roles. The infotainment provided by these is watched passively at the end of a tiring day and the powerful signals easily penetrate and influence the easy acceptance of stereotypes. Women are rarely shown in their diversity with the nuances that make character study such a fascinating experience.

New saris and matching accessories are not all there is to life and wealth is not defined by what one carries on one's person. Gender roles are to be carefully and fairly negotiated and they are not the stuff of sexist jokes or remarks.