B&B in the bonnet

Some of my friends would think I’m completely crazy for admitting this in print. This year, in 2007, I’ve completed 15 years of religiously following...

Some of my friends would think I’m completely crazy for admitting this in print. This year, in 2007, I’ve completed 15 years of religiously following The Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, that same TV soap starring the iconic Ridge and Brooke and Stephanie and Taylor, where there are absolutely no rules when it comes to romantic relationships. Anything goes. And I mean anything.

Briefly, B&B is about two warring families running competing fashion empires. The women randomly produce kids by male members of the same family who, by some clever plotting by the scriptwriters, just about escape being related by blood. Yet, despite it being utter tripe, I’ve been hooked to B&B since the cable revolution took off in India in 1992.

It all started while I was studying for my 10th Board exams. A friend who lived down the road would come over for the daily half-hour programme. Before Ektaa Kapoor ambushed India with her indigenous B&Bs, this show had quite a following. My 70-year-old grandmother was hooked as well but she stopped watching it because she was outraged that Brooke married Eric after splitting with Ridge, his son.

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While in college, I met my soul mate, a guy who used to bunk his last class to reach home in time for Santa Barbara, another popular soap. But my friends sneered at him for his unmanly habit, I succumbed to peer pressure, and it was all over. Now, a decade and a half later, my four-year-old son knows 10 to 12 on Saturday mornings is B&B time. For me, this show is like therapy; I find the mind-numbing banality of it all strangely comforting. And I’ve come to marvel at the genius of the scriptwriters. They rehash the same lines every few years, include a few trite references to whatever’s in the news, like Iraq and AIDS, and when they completely run out of ideas, they throw in a catfight between two luscious women.

After being on air for almost 20 years, the stars have started aging, and dying. Sally Spectra passed on recently and the others are valiantly fighting wrinkles with surgery. Ridge and Brooke’s kids are in focus, and the future of B&B seems to be pegged on them. Will I continue to watch it? You bet.