The man who did not die on cue
Feeling almost cheated by his living, the news channels at hand flogged the story to death.
Reprinted from the Indian Express October 21,2005
Shailaja Bajpai
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 20: Let`s begin at the very end: Pandit Kunjilal, self-styled astrologer, is alive and well and living in Betul, Madhya Pradesh. At precisely 4 pm, Kunjilal (according to Star News’ correspondent) coughed. He drank some water and as Sahara’s correspondent reported in offended tones, ‘‘suddenly rose one hour early’’ from his certain death. Asked to explain the postponement of his date with darkness, the smiling media star of the day replied that it was all due to good wishes, prayers. ‘‘And how long do you propose to live, now?’’ demanded a disappointed TV journalist. Kunjilal grinned broadly: ‘‘God knows how long I will live.’’ Coming from a man who had predicted that he would die today between 3pm and 5pm that’s really funny.
3 pm onward: TV news channels Star News, Aaj Tak and Sahara who took Kunjilal at his word and devoted hours of live transmission time to his close encounter with death, were, like Queen Elizabeth II, not amused. He had spoilt their headlines. ‘‘Aaj Meri Mauth Hai (Star News), ‘‘Aaj Maroonga’’ (Aaj Tak), sound infinitely more filmi than ‘‘Mauth ka drama khatam’’ (Star) or Aaj Tak’s tame, ‘‘Mauth Talli ’’ (death postponed).
What went through Kunjilal’s mind during what he believed were his last few hours (did he do it to come on to the ‘‘video’’ asked one reporter, nastily) we will never know. All we saw was a man looking half asleep. However, these TV news channels knew death is a serious matter. So they took Kunjilal’s prediction very seriously. Fearing that he might pop it while they popped off for ‘‘ek chhota sa break,’’ Sahara simply stayed put outside his hut in Betul, and listened to people celebrating the event with dholaks and songs and posted regular updates on his health: ‘‘Doctors say he is fit.’’
As the leading news channels in the country, Aaj Tak and Star News (or is it the other way around?) felt it was their duty to treat the occasion greater solemnity. So they held studio discussions. Aaj Tak asked its resident astrologer for the day, K.N. Rao if people could accurately predict their own death. ‘‘Of course it can happen,’’ replied he gravely, adding that his analysis of Kunjilal’s kundali, indicated the strong possibility of his imminent departure. This outraged the General Secretary of the Rationalist Society in Kolkata, Probir Ghosh who went ‘‘pooh-pooh’’ or more polite words to that effect. His disparaging comments offended another astrologer, Acharya K. Arora who said he had no business criticising astrology. It was time for Dr. Vohra to referee. He took KBC’s 50:50 route: ‘‘Astrology is a very deep science but there is a lot of superstition in this country.’’
Meanwhile, where was poor Kunjilal? Left to die in Betul while they slugged it out in the studio. Star News and Sahara also staged it like a WWF wrestling bout between The Rationalist and The Astrologer. However, Star’s sympathies lay with the latter and, in particular, Prem Kumar Sharma from Chandigarh. As 4 pm neared and Kunjilal was obstinately still breathing, the anchor quizzed Sharma:‘‘But what if the time (of birth?) was 8? Or 8.30? Or 9?—is death a possibility then?’’ insisted the earnest anchor knowing this was a matter of life and death. Sharmaji was most unhelpful: No, 8 is not possible, 8.30 is not possible and nor is 9.
3.51 pm: Sahara’s reporter in Betul was losing his enthusiasm: ‘‘The clock is ticking on but it doesn’t look like he will die.’’ Indeed, Kunjilal was nonchalantly fanning himself. We saw doctors going into check him out—2 minutes to go, said the correspondent in a space-shuttle countdown voice but Kunjilal was not for, er, lifting off. Star News turned for help to the public outside Kunjilal’s home who dismissed the entire thing: ‘‘Nothing will happen—this place is just very superstitious. I only came because all your TV channels were carrying the news.’’
3.58: Just before the appointed hour, Aaj Tak and Star News went for a commercial break, no doubt unable to bear the tension. When they returned, it was to announce Kunjilal calling off his death vigil because the worst (time) was over. But the channels were not giving up so easily. Feeling almost cheated by his living, they flogged the story to death. On Aaj Tak, it was a triumphant smiling rationalist Ghosh versus Rao until a weary Rao could be heard asking ‘‘How long will this go on?’’, while on Star News, astrologer Sharma felt that Kunjilal probably staged the entire drama for media attention.
4.20: In the absence of Kunjilal, his son and daughter took over on Aaj Tak to say how happy they were daddy was alive and how poor mummy-ji had fallen asleep. The channels were getting very tetchy now—having exploited and been exploited by Kunjilal, the channels now turned on him: Sahara Breaking News: ‘‘Khatam hua natak’’, Astrologer Rao on Aaj Tak: It’s not right for an astrologer to predict such a thing.
And finally, Star News offered this by way of explanation for its behaviour: ‘‘It is always our aim to bring you the truth, so we stayed with the story. This was a drama, nothing more.’’ Never had a truer word been spoken.
WHAT THE CHANNELS SAY
• Uday Shanker, CEO, Star News
For us, this was news because as a TV news channel, one’s target audience is very diverse. An autodriver watches a channel, so does a journalist. You would have no idea of how big this story was in the local dailies of Betul, that is where we picked it up from. For us, it was an opportunity to expose such fraud astrologers. Kunjilal’s father had also made a similar claim.Today was a chance for all people to see how they had been hoodwinked and why shouldn’t we expose it? It sounds dramatic because TV by design and ambience is dramatic. Had it been covered by a newspaper, it would have been called serious journalism.
• Prabhat Dabral, Vice President & Head of News Sahara
‘‘We were the first with the story at 7 am. It was the main story of the day. We have a regional MP channel so it was a news event. Unfortunately, there was not much other news on the day and we had to be with the story in the afternoon because that was the time he might have died. ‘‘There’s too much competition, and market pressure, there are times when you have to make a compromise between market demands and honest journalism. Occasionally, one loses balance but we were careful to present the rationalist point of view.’’
• V.Krishnan, Head of Aaj Tak
‘‘It was not competition from other channels. I think there was a story here. He said his grandfather and father had died at their appointed time. There was a likelihood something could occur—this is reality TV. So we had no option but go with the story and stay with it in the afternoon. Suppose he had died and we had not been there people would have wondered why. There was not much news and the afternoon band is not that popular. This was also an effort to create a sampling. TV is evolving and sometimes can be misused. We have to be proactive in making a judgement call on such matters. It’s not just us—the print media uses 8-column headlines on non-news stories. It’s all about grabbing the attention.
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