Think you can sing? Think Jassi should wear lipstick on her birthday? Think India should sit out the Beijing Olympics? Think Uma Bharati is the future of the BJP? Think Shaz is prettier than Waz on their ‘cricket’ show? Don’t you think you are being asked to think too much about subjects you may never entertained a thought on before?Questions. SMS polls. Opinion Polls. All day, every channel. Wonder how many respond to SMS polls — the way channels project it, you’d think a) we have an opinion on every subject, b) do nothing but form instantaneous opinions.Never before has our opinion been so eagerly sought, or valued, never has watching TV been more taxing. The box was a small wonder because it never made any demands upon us — you were a passive smoker inhaling whatever signals were sent out. No longer: each TV channel is asking us to think, think, think! What is the matter with them? If thinking was what we wanted to do, would we watch TV?Interactivity is the Page 3 of television: it’s chic, it’s happening and so nice to see your loved ones on air. Last week, some of us were lucky to be seen passing judgement on the first 100 days of the Manmohan Singh government — in addition to the opinion polls by channels like Star News.NDTV has gone one step further. On a new programme — You Decide (24X7) — two ‘experts’ argue over an issue of the day and, depending on our opinion of their opinions, we vote. Another programme, Khabardar (NDTV India) allows us to appear before the camera and question our elected representatives. This is a good programme with a worthy cause: we can talk about the essentials of life: water, electricity, garbage dumps, potholes. And mind you, our MPs seem to be conversant with developments in their constituencies: Mr Mittal knew all about Ghaziabad, the Mohan Nagar bypass, etc, so possibly the show will alter the perception that MPs only visit their constituencies at election time. Anchor Vinod Dua reminds them of promises they made during their election campaigns and promises to recall them in 6-8 weeks for another Q&A. Public accountability, zindabad!Jassi celebrated a birthday last week. She’s been with us for a year, and we can still say, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin (Sony). This is not entirely complimentary: a year ago she was a plain and simple girl; 365 days later, she’s a commemorative stamp. From flesh and bones to paper. Hmmmmn.Still, she arrived on the screen, an oddity in the world of beautiful bahus and braced for battle. A battle she won, despite much higher viewership ratings for Parvati, Prerna and Tulsi (the K serials). Jassi delights viewers, she exasperates them with her goody-goodiness and irritates them with her single-minded obsession of that cad, Armaan. Yet, alongwith the rest of the cast, she more than holds her own against our favourite parivars because Jassi has life and energy and smiles through the tears. Our bahus, betis, behens go boohoo all the time while our saas, sons and saalas go sob-sob. That’s the difference between them.Jassi has left her imprint on TV — and we’re not talking about the stamp now — in more than one way. The saas-bahus are politely being asked to make way for younger people on their own serials and in new prime time shows like Dekho Magar Pyar Se (Star Plus), Hum 2 Hain Na, Ayushmaan (Sony), Saathiya (Sahara) or Meri Disha (Zee). It’s fresh if not always refreshing but we will discuss that next week. For now, wish Jassi, wish that she does not become a prisoner of her own image and grows up before her next birthday.The coverage of the Russian school hostage crisis was heartrending (CNN, BBC World). Should news channels repeatedly telecast little children dead, injured, fleeing their captors? Whose cause does this help? Certainly not the families of the hostages. Moreover, the footage was from Russian state-controlled TV and therefore, we will never know why the security forces overcame their stated reluctance to storm the school and why so many children died.
