Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Here8217;s our question: when Rahul and Priyanka went for a stroll, on a balmy afternoon last week and walked into a live television broadcast, did anyone pop the question: aapko kaise lag raha hai?
Anybody who wants to be somebody, on and off the tube, either asks or gets asked this question. It8217;s TV news8217; gift to the nation. Last week, when Shilpa Shetty hosted producer-director Goldie Behl for a free promo of his upcoming film Drona on Bigg Boss Colors, her first tender inquiry was: kaise lag raha hai? When Abhishek Bachchan joined them to promote his role as Drona, she asked him: aapko kaise lag raha hai? To which he responded 8212; I feel dreadful for the people in Orissa, Bihar hit by floods 8230; just kidding.. Ditto question to evicted Raja when he visited her confessional couch. On the new Colors show Ek Haseena Ek Khiladi, presenter Sandhya Mridul observed Vinod Kambli wearing sweat like a body suit after his dance item and asked judges Sushmita Sen and Wasim Akram: kaise laga aapko? To Irfan Pathan who had as little swing in his movements as in his bowling these days, she offered a variation: kaise lag raha hai? No wonder, then, that TV news journalist in the film A Wednesday asked a gentleman recently embraced by a livewire electrical pole 8212; aapko kaise laga? To which he gave the standard reply: accha lag raha hai.
Dancing on Zaara Nach Ke Dikha Star came to halt after some really fab performances by the female and male teams. The girls won. We8217;ll miss them but Malaika Khan8217;s beseeching looks were becoming a strain on the eyes which might explain fellow judge Chunky Pandey wearing heavy sunglasses. Indian Idol Sony started season four like season one, two and three with Anu Malik8217;s mock tantrums. Anuradha Paudwal lent her voice to the proceedings and Sonali Bendre her looks and husband Goldie, who rushed over from Bigg Boss to plant a kiss on wifely cheek.
MTV has begun a news season of Fully Faltoo films. After watching Bechare Zameen Par, almost wish it hadn8217;t. Cyrus Sahukar played an overgrown schoolboy with a talent for getting nothing right until Nikamma teacher spots his talent for art. You know the rest. Sahukar is something of a jerk when he dances, wrenching his limbs out of their joints. He sings somewhat better, especially his rendition of Meri ma. The Amir Khan look alike is great with his mannerisms and so is the rest of the cast. Just one problem: it8217;s not funny.
Lastly, on to BBC8217;s Living on the Edge series and the episode, No Country for Young Girls? on female foeticide in India. Beginning at the monument of a man8217;s love for a woman, the Taj Mahal, it takes Vaijanti Devi, a woman from a lower middle class background in Agra who abandoned her marriage in order to keep her two daughters, on a journey through India to discover how women cope with discrimination. She begins in Rajasthan with Jasbir Kaur who refused to abort three girls, then arrives in Delhi where she is suddenly dressed up and taken to a discotheque where she is forced to discuss women8217;s issues with hip chicks and then made to dance.
In Bangalore, she visits senior women IT professionals in their plush offices looking 8212; and probably feeling 8212; completely out of her depth as they discuss working women8217;s problems. She meets the minister for women and child development and asks questions like 8212; what is the government doing for women? Renuka Chowdhury launches a broadside: men must realize that 8220;what you reap is what you sow8217;. Huh? Vaijanti also visits Sabarmati Ashram to seek Gandhi8217;s views of the condition of women. At the end, we are told that Vaijanti realizes she is not alone. However, you can8217;t help but see that the distance between her and the women she met, except Jasbir Kaur, is unbridgeable. It8217;s also an odd approach to the issue of female foeticide. You expect much more depth, and subtlety from the BBC.
