TV... yeh dil mange no more

BY Padmaja Shaw| IN Media Practice | 06/10/2011

What is on offer on the tube on a pre-holiday evening? Same weighty people discussing weighty matters on NDTV, Anna teetering on the edge of another uposhan, KBC lending a reluctant tear to victims of Naxals, and an Indian origin Nasdaq specialist p

PADMAJA SHAW nominates the inventor of the TV remote for a Nobel and opts for coffee

It was one of those ‘week’ moments. Next day, 6^th October 2011, is a public holiday. Who wants to work on serious stuff? One felt like catching some TEEVEEE!!

First, of course, NDTV. Nidhi Razdan was hosting this show, ‘Left, Right and Centre’. Weighty matters were being discussed. Chetan Bhagat called Infosys a body shop. Neither Bhagat nor Narayan Murthy were on the show, but Nirmala Seetharaman, Abhishek Singhvi, Mr Pai (formerly of Infosys) and others did the honours. Bhagat is right. Narayana Murthy is right. He is misunderstood. HE is misunderstood. The result of the discussion? Cannot recall what anyone said.

Next topic: Is Rahul Gandhi ready to become PM? Minus Pai, the others were present to discuss the subject. There were clips of some interview with Pranab Da. Not sure if it was here or elsewhere! Because when one zaps channels these days, one sees the guys (and ads) you are running from on the other channels as well. For a couple of days, Jayanarayan Vyas was showing up on many ‘live’ shows at the same time. No big deal. This is an old art perfected by the likes of Nirmala Seetharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, and Abhishek Singhvi. Again, the point of the discussion was difficult to fathom. Are we looking for a PM today by some mysterious good fortune? Has Manmohan ji, along with Montek Singh ji decided to take a hike up to the Himalayas to scale different kinds of heights (not those of economic growth)?

Being a little paranoid about the goings on in the world of late, one was really anxious to know what was unfolding on Wall Street and other business districts in the US of A. Also in Syria. In Libya. In our backyard, Chhattisgarh. In Orissa. None of our three robust English channels (NDTV, Times Now and CNN IBN) have cast a cursory glance at those places. The day before, of course, all three repeatedly showed Anna shaking his finger at and issuing electoral threats to the Congress Party. If Anna goes on fast again, much to the delight of our media brethren, we will see some more coverage from that mysterious American spot, ‘GROUND ZERO’, re-located may be to Ramlila, may be to Ralegaon on a khatiya.

I decided that switching between these three channels is of no use. It’s like the central newsroom of Doordarshan. Some ministry busybody clears the stuff and all the channels dole out the same soup, mostly in the same order, preferably news out of Delhi. One remembers the good old days when champions of privatisation would accuse DD of being ministry-controlled and ‘Delhi-centric’.

This wasn’t working. So one switches to Kaun Banega Crorepati to see the Big B at his best, and to try one’s hand at GK. Suddenly, there’s real news on KBC! One of the contestants is a security guard from Chhattisgarh, dedicating his life to protect the lives of our democratically elected representatives from Naxal threats. A proud poor man, who has seen much poverty and will win big money on the show to realise his dreams… It doesn’t stop there. There are teaser promos of the later episodes where a young attractive widow of a police officer who was killed by the Naxals (there you go again) will be on the show. The officer was shot dead when she was pregnant. Now she is bringing up her two-year old daughter and writes a diary to her husband every night sharing her day with him. Has the KBC team changed its method of selection of the contestants? They look strangely hand-picked.

That aside, I would have thought, shooting the breeze about Chetan Bhagat and Rahul Gandhi would have worked better on KBC and this Naxal stuff and poverty and tales of courage would probably be better off on the news programme. Come to think of it, Big B did not even make anyone cry after the heart-rending stories. He looked a little shaken instead. That’s more the reason why the poverty stories should have gone on news because squeezing a tear out of unsuspecting participants is old hat for some of the anchors.

Thoroughly confused with my viewing experience thus far, I decided to go watch a hard-nosed business channel. Lo and behold. The markets are tanking everywhere. There are citizens trudging to Wall Street to finally stop American-style capitalism in its tracks. But on this business channel there was this Indian-origin guy representing Nasdaq who was drawling that the European crisis needs American-style capitalism to fix it. But of course Europe won’t accept that, blah, blah, blah. Didn’t want to figure out why the anchor of the show had such a bemused smile on her face.

I decided then that if no one wants to wake up and smell the coffee, I certainly would like a cup immediately. Did the guy who invented the remote get a Nobel? If he hasn’t, he should.