A longish thread on a TV show. No, it is not one of the shows that are being hotly debated on Twitter right now; it is a show which brought back some pleasant childhood memories. (1/n)

Prasar Bharati has started uploading the famous TV series "Pachpan Khambein Laal Deewarein" from the 1990s on their Youtube channel.


Ever since DD started uploading old shows, I was eagerly waiting for this show for many reasons. (2/n)

The show is an adaptation of a Hindi novel by the same name; the name, incidentally, is inspired by my alma mater Lady Shriram College (famous for its red walls and 55 pillars). The author served as a lecturer before moving to US in the 1960s for a postdoctoral position. (3/n)

Prof. Usha Saxena-Nilsson spent most of her academic career as a faculty member at University of Wisconsin Madison, but wrote Hindi novels and short stories under the pen name Usha Priyamvada. (4/n)

She is among the very few authors in the Hindi language who wrote a lot about women in academia (mostly India based, but occasionally also in the American context). (5/n)

For example, the protagonist of one of her short stories is up for tenure evaluation! Here is an extract of a conversation with a mentor assigned to her by the department; he is giving her feedback and tells her to publish more! Do check this out if you can read Hindi (6/n)

Fun element in the above extract: the Hindi translation of "publish or perish" is "छपाओ या मरो" :-) (7/n)

As a "woman in academia" today, it is hard for me to relate to many elements of the story or her other heroines. (8/n)

Some of the above sounds familiar even to many of us today [I have certainly had my share of uncles and aunties making similar comments; nowadays there is an entity called "Trad Twitter" that plays this role].

But, all this is mostly background noise in her stories.(9/n)

In this particular story, the protagonist also deals with stress arising from her family responsibilities [she is the sole earner in her family and unfortunately, her relatives do not extend any sympathy or understanding to her]. (10/n)

But, the main theme in her stories is that her academic women characters feel intellectually stilted and emotionally unfulfilled. So, they drift into feelings of loneliness and despair. (11/n)

This is the theme that I don't relate to at all. Is it so hard to imagine a heroine who loves her work (that centres around teaching and learning no less; what can be more intellectually stimulating?) (12/n)

I realize these stories are from almost 50 years ago and many were written at the beginning of the author's academic journey. Looks like I am judging imaginary characters because they don't think like me; how silly :-) (13/n)

Nevertheless, it is fascinating to read an author with a prolific repertoire of stories based on the theme of women in academia. (14/n)

As an aside, I was around 11 or 12 when this show was aired; my mother followed this show and I would watch whatever she watched. Didn't understand much, but totally fell in love with the main character Sushma Sharma (played beautifully by Mita Vashisht). (15/n)

After I saw Sushma Sharma reading a periodical called "The competition refresher" in the show, I started reading "Competition Success Review" [the only periodical in the market with a title close to the one Sushma reads!] (16/n)

A common visual in the show was the heroine comfortably placed on a low seated sofa and reading or working. I requested my parents to get such a sofa for our living room and they kindly obliged :-) (17/n)

(** SPOILER ALERT) After the show ended on an ambiguous note, my mother scoured through newspapers and other (limited) resources to learn more about the author; based on her information, she predicted (and convinced herself of) the "real" ending that was not shown. (18/18)