Just two minutes

A more approprirate sponsor might have been Maggi. If you8217;ve watched Tully8217;s programme you8217;ll appreciate why. It8217;s a 2-minute noodle, sorry nugget of history. Quick 8216;n easy: just heat the saucepan, pour in plenty or archival and ANI footage, season with Tully8217;s knowledge of the subcontinent, and voila, it8217;s ready for consumption. Thus were five years of the P.V. Narasimha Rao government served up in just over 120 seconds. At the end of each byte you were left asking yourself: is this what 50 years has been reduced to? A snack?

As something to nibble between the BBC news and the next scheduled programme, 1947-1997 is okay. As a filler pun was not intended, it is pretty sumptuous. As anything else, it8217;s completely unsatisfying. There8217;s no time to savour Tully8217;s efforts. No time to chew. Simply swallow. Digest nothing, absorb less. Just stare and wonder about the nutritional value of history cooked in a microwave.

Dynasty: The Nehru-Gandhi Story is a four part series, each episode approximately 50 minutes. It8217;s a wonderful idea. A viable, saleable idea, as author Arundathi Roy might have put it.

Once again, it took an invader to walk away with it. Here is a story, epic in its dimensions; a story Indians know as well as they know their Ramayana or Mahabharat. Therefore, any attempt to serialise it, must be canny and careful; it must be aware of the pitfalls involved when telling a tale people know almost by heart.

And so what does the BBC do? Why it gives us a love story what else do you do when you have a quot;dashing8221; hero like Nehru?. It takes history, dusts off its cobwebs, sweeps out the dirt clinging to its events and whitewashes its blemishes. At least in the first episode. There are no villains with the honourable exceptions of Gen.

Dwyer and Jinnah who Mountbatten recalled, always had this irritating habit of saying quot;no8221; to everything, though the BBC doesn8217;t care to explain why. Rounded characters are missing, cardboard cut-outs fill the screen. This, inspite of a myriad interviews with personalities: Mountbatten, his daughter, Nehru8217;s nieces Chandralekha, Nayantara, Nehru8217;s secretary Seshan, Nehru8217;s relative B. K. Nehru, Congress volunteers Pran Chopra, T.N.Kaul, S.S.Ray, historian Bipan Chandra, journalist M.J.Akbar; inspite of clever recreations of Jallianwalla Bagh, wonderful old photographs and some tender vignettes Nehru, hot in his silk underwear the first time he took to the streets 8212; inspite of all this, Dynasty is a travesty.

People and events are rose-tinted appropriately since Nehru love his roses, everyone is a good guy: the Nehru men were so charismatic; Lady Mountbatten was just a friend of the family; Kamala Nehru was a beautiful wife, who Nehru came to love even more after she joined him on the streets and here we8217;ve been thinking they had serious marital problems!; Partition was a division nobody wanted quot;but division it had to be8221; but why if nobody wanted it? and as for the British, well, everybody beginning with Nehru loved them, ofcourse 8230;

Here again, BBC seemed to be in the Maggi frame of mind. It went quickly from one thing to another; it moved like a car does over a speed-breaker: bumpily. Connections weren8217;t always there or made; events were reported not explained. The signposts were there but you8217;re not sure what exactly they were pointing towards.

You can8217;t understand what is going on in the first episode of Dynasty if you don8217;t know your history. Conversely, if you do know your history, you still can8217;t understand what is going on since this is not what you learnt. Dynasty is like Curry in a hurry8217;: solid morsels without any spice.