Is liplock in public interest?

The committee investigating airtime eaten up by Rakhee Sawant’s liplock had submitted its report. For two weeks, 30 babus pressed the pause button to watch that now-famous moment, secretly hoping Rakhee-shaped women dropped by on their birthdays too.

Mukul had more. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has decided to play moral cop for news on the idiot box and 30 babus have come out with a 65-page masterpiece. So many years after the Emergency, their time has come. Soon, they will do their own press conference on how they have brought news channels under the common minimum programme. No Rakhee Sawant to turn on young minds between 4 pm and 7 pm, no sting operations to make netas choke on their scotch at prime time.

As part of the drafting procedure, television bosses are being served notices on objectionable content like the greatly pressed kiss, air kiss, flying kiss, and any news bulletin that doesn’t look like Doordarshan.

Man Friday Mukul claims he knew because he recently landed a new job in the latest 24-hour channel round the corner—Dum Dum Diga Diga. Mukul claimed he was pulled up by Napoleon, a high official of the I&B Ministry. ‘‘How can you justify Rakhee Sawant as public interest?’’ he barked. ‘‘You keep showing a voluptuous woman kissing, that too in the headlines,’’ the babu said and whipped out the 65-page tome on content regulation.

Mukul picked one gem from the tome. ‘‘…Private affairs like kissing, making love cannot be telecast when schoolchildren are supposed to be at home, and when such content is telecast, parents must be in the TV room and not in the bedroom, unless the bedroom is also the TV room and vice-versa. Between 4 pm and 7 pm, the responsibility for self-policing rests solely with the licensee, that is the TV channel, and after that jointly with the licensee and the consumer or viewer after 7 pm.’’

‘‘What about cricket?’’ I asked Mukul. ‘‘Prime time news coverage of cricket and crime shows will come up in the next Cabinet meet on internal security,’’ said Mukul, quoting Napoleon. Kitten, our lapdog, busy watching the football quarterfinals on telly, shrank at the mention of Napoleon. How did that unbearable Orwellian pig come back into her life?

‘‘Why can’t the Cabinet sort out some other mess? Vidarbha, price rise, Sensex,’’ I said, bugged that all my stocks were tanking. ‘‘Napoleon says most babus’ wives watch news channels because that’s the hottest thing in their lives. Babus watch it at night for the same reason. Now, they all believe that whatever is on prime time is the only news—Rakhee Sawant, Dawood, Rahul Mahajan…so Cabinet discusses only these issues.’’ ‘‘Sure thing,’’ I told Mukul. ‘‘When the Government starts getting nuked, you’ll get to know how hot farmer suicides are.’’

‘‘The Government will never see the plus side,’’ explained Mukul. ‘‘I told Napoleon that the government benefits from not censoring Rakhee Sawant. When prices rise, give them Rakhee’s liplock and you have an ideal diversion.’’ ‘‘What was the reaction?’’ ‘‘On expected lines. Napoleon says what’s a bureaucrat without his danda if TV channels decide the agenda?’’