One doesn’t like to prose on and on, but somethings never change. The other evening, the Prime Minister held an Iftar party. Many people attended it, including Sonia Gandhi, albeit briefly. However, she made little impression on the DD News crew who failed to record her presence for posterity or the prime time news bulletin (9.00 pm). Many other ‘dignitaries’, including Muslim leaders from Lucknow who had come expressly for the occasion, received short shrift. Instead, we witnessed Rajeev Ratan Shah shaking hands with the PM, doing namaste to the PM, moving away from the PM and coming close to the camera. He received more exclusive coverage than everyone but the PM.Now, who would R R Shah be? CEO, Prasar Bharati, the big boss of Doordarshan/AIR, that’s who. Obviously, the DD news team believed the country must know he was present at the PM’s party. In all fairness, Mr Shah seemed blissfully unaware of Doordarshan’s keen interest in him. That’s the whole point about DD culture: It is so deeply ingrained in the people who work there, they don’t require orders: they wouldn’t behave differently even if you ordered them, otherwise! Perhaps, then, we should consign the DD staff to a remote island without more than their toothbrushes and see if they don’t learn that survival requires more than pleasing the boss. It means killing a rat. And probably eating it too. Ask the Tagi and Pagong tribes whom we saw last week on Survivor (AXN) in this experiment with reality TV. It was replete with mock, primordial kitsch: A bunch of pretty ordinary castaways (pot-bellied Richard and cantankerous Rudy..) in flimsy, tattering clothes, ominous drumbeats and ‘‘oooooo’’s in the background, an indifferent Nature, the eerie harshness of unknown jungle interiors, the rituals of survival. The contestants tried to start fires the old fashioned way and failed. They tried to build shelters and succeeded. They slept out in the open, under the stars and stripes, sorry, sky. And they began to dislike one another intensely within the first few hours. In individual conversations with the camera, they expressed their feelings for other members of the team, mostly uncomplimentary . The island was virgin (!), the sea enticing, but the first episode of Survivor was a bit like a very tight churidar or pair of jeans: It took some getting into. The first half hour was pretty puzzling, visually and verbally. We couldn’t quite tell what the people were doing once they swam onto the island or why, and we certainly couldn’t understand what they said to each other. Like Indians, American tend to speak nonstop as if they forgot the space bar on the keyboard.: ‘‘Let’stalkaboutwhat we’regoingtodo.why arewehere?’’ That too with a nasal block some place up their nostrils (no offense!). Pretty confusing. AXN should have given us a 10-minute introduction with an explanation about the rules of the game. Still, there was slick-quick camera work and fast-paced editing to admire. Just about the time you got sick of that and were beginning to wonder what was wrong with 72 million viewers in USA who watched the series, the tempo quickened. The teams receive a challenge. The camera records their progress. Pagong wins. For the losing Tagi tribe it is a date with host Jeff Probst and the Tribal Council at which they must vote one of their team off the island. This is when the tension enters their skins and yours. They begin to bitch about one another or accept their own failings: ‘‘My stumble cost us the challenge,’’ admits Sonja. The tribal council has rituals (torch-holding, etc) and becomes a microcosm of life: You have to make life and death choices by selecting who should stay and who should leave because your survival on the island depends on the people who stay on. Well, they voted off Sonja (no surprise). ‘‘The tribe has spoken,’’ invokes Probst and she immediately walks away into the night as her torch is snuffed out. But for the Tribal Council bit, you did sorta wonder about the sanity of the contestants: there must be simpler ways of winning a million dollars. You almost envied Sonja: she was going home to a warm bed and a proper toilet! A word about Directors Cut, the new slot on Nine Gold’s Metro hours. The 90-100 minute tele-film (Saturdays) is innovative and takes you away from Bollywood blockbusters, quiz shows, family (mis)fortunes and what happens to mothers-in-law who appear to have forgotten they too were once daughters-in-law (otherwise entitled, Kyunki Saas Bhool Gaye Ki Woh Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thhi). Director’s Cut ropes in some big names to direct these short movies and we just hope it works because we’re longing for a change. A last word about The Marriage of Madonna which is not the name of an opera but the Material Girl’s nuptials. BBC covered it extravagantly, giving it headline news throughout the day (Friday), showing little Rocco after his baptism (‘‘the baby came first, the wedding later’’, an anchor said laconically) and the arrival of special guests. BBC posted a correspondent outside the Scottish castle gate. you’d have thought Prince William was tying a knot or two. There was useless information about her wedding dress (a Stella McCartney 30,000 English pounder!) and her assets. No, not her body but the figure $250 million which is her estimated worth. Heavy.
