“Will you walk into my parlour?’’ said the spider to the fly. The fly was understandably reluctant to accept the invitation but the spider ‘‘wove a subtle web’’that enticed the fly to draw near: ‘‘up jumped the Spider’’ to do what spiders do, mannerless creatures: entrapped the ‘‘poor foolish thing’’. Moral of the story? Learn you nursery rhymes. Had Shakti Kapoor and Aman Verma learnt theirs, they would have rememberd ‘‘unto an evil counselor, close heart and ear and eye.’’ In other words, don’t be a fly.Meanwhile, Mallika Sherawat, Priyanka Chopra, and all you remix girls, move over, ‘Ruchi’ is here. ‘Ruchi’ who? Why, you know, India’s Most Wanted ‘actress’? The flirtatious one who said one thing but meant another when she told Aman not to be ‘‘naughty’’. As she had hoped, Aman was delighted by the compliment and gave her an admiring once over. ‘Ruchi’, the siren who led Shakti to cast caution to winds and hit the couch with terms of endearment - and at least one expletive. Clearly, there was more to ‘Ruchi’ than journalistic charms, sorry skills. Has she got an acting career ahead of her or what.Kapoor and Verma, as seen on the tapes, are offensive. However, as stings go, how do you rate these? In Shakti Kapoor’s case we learnt he was (as he admitted later) ‘‘a human being’’, something we already knew. The existence of a casting couch in Bollywood was, supposedly, revealed. As Mallika Sarabhai asked on India TV: ‘‘Are you surprised?’’ No, not really. However, since it went no further than the sofa in the hotel room, we are none the wiser after this expose than we were before. If there was a revelation it was Shakti’s fluent English - and his claim that big names in Bollywood got where they are because they did what he wanted to do with Ruchi. Unsubstantiated allegation.As for Aman Verma, we learnt that nothing can separate his lips from that silly grin. We didn’t need a sting operation for that, we see him wearing it all the time - on Khullja Sim Sim and Indian Idol. Why, even when he played a maniacal guy in Devi, he wore it like a talisman. The video clip on him was so fleeting it provided little beyond his appreciation of ‘Ruchi’.India TV ran these clips as often as they could so that none - man, woman, child or animal - should be deprived; each day it devoted hours to actors like Nagma, model Nikita Anand and actor/model Ashish Chowdhury who said they had heard of said famous piece of lateral furniture but no, they had never been asked to occupy it for a job. It featured directors like Mahesh Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt, every day, to bemoan Bollywood recruitment policy.The channel ran 24-hour SMS messages numbering God knows how many thousands from impressed viewers - India TV has saved bharatiya nari, India TV is the choice of the people. It discovered a band of women burning effigies of our two heroes in Aligarh ‘‘India TV ko dhanyavad.’’ Three anchors sat in the studio (one remained a decorative piece) who proclaimed the vital importance of this operation. Yes, but for whom? You decide.Rajat Sharma, who anchors India TV, literally and figuratively, pledged to direct his sting at other professions: health, education, he named specifically. If the current operation is anything to go by, you know what to expect.If you believe these stings contributed significantly to our knowledge of how Bollywood works, so be it. If you think they justify the means and the extensive coverage India TV gave to them, so be it. If you think India TV ought to be congratulated, go ahead and SMS them. However. The next time a female journalist goes to inteview anyone - not just in Bollywood - she may just be frisked (for hidden tapes, cameras), distrusted, her bonafides questioned, investigated. Aspiring actresses will be equally suspect. Exaggeration? Perhaps but a possibility. In which case, ‘Ruchi’ is an unjust comment on professional women who have never been near a couch to get the job done. Did we celebrate Women’s Day, last week?
