Spycams in real-life saas-bahu sagas

It’s barely noticeable, on 24x7 alert and one of the latest gizmos Indians are using largely for ‘shady reasons’. The spycam has moved from pulp fiction and sting operations into middle-class bedrooms.

It’s barely noticeable, on 24x7 alert and one of the latest gizmos Indians are using largely for ‘shady reasons’. The spycam has moved from pulp fiction and sting operations into middle-class bedrooms.

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Raman Jairath should know. “In the last three years,” says the Delhi-based importer and distributor of electronic goods, “sales of spy cameras have shot up by about 200 per cent. Earlier, people used detectives; now they prefer their own equipment.”

Among the biggest buyers are errant spouses and warring in-laws. Vishwas Sharma of Delhi recently bought a pen camera for his mother, so she could keep tabs on her other’s son wife. Last year in Mumbai, a widow complained to the police that her in-laws had placed spycams in the house to keep tabs on her. In a counter-complaint, the in-laws insisted they’d done so because they feared she would do them in for the property.

It’s not just in-laws who are resorting to spying. The parent-child relationship has problems too. Says Rahul Gandhi of Delhi-based RG Technologies: “We’ve had a father who wanted to catch his son stealing money, a son who wanted to find out how his parents were dividing the family money, and a couple who wanted to keep a watch on their child’s nanny.”

(Some names changed on request)

(Inputs from Mini Pant Zachariah)