News is… what happens on TV

Suggestion: Indian news channels ought to have telecast the finale of Big Brother and been done with it.

Meanwhile our very own Big Brother, da-Bigg Boss, was late night news on Saturday after Rahul Roy, the least visible and audible of all inmates won Rs 50 lakh, while charming, chattering Carol won nothing. Try that out for discrimination.

In case anyone doubts this thesis, recall that TV commercials welcoming the West Indies cricket team to India with, ‘It’s hard to be a West Indian in India’ made the lead of at least one prominent English daily and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi’s ban on AXN was the topic of several TV discussions. All this in just the last fortnight.

Things have come to such a pass that a Times Now report on the Bachchan clan at the French Embassy in New Delhi had TV cameras in foreground focus rather than the stars!

Television news knocked Nithari off the top story spot, but there is one person it can never replace, even if King Khan can: Amitabh Bachchan makes news every day. As India is Poised for a great future, he’s in TV commercials, film trailers, films, film songs, and the news. One day he’s interviewed about Abhishek and Guru, the next about Abhishek and Aishwarya, the third about Abhishek, Aishwarya and Guru, the fourth about Abhishek, Aishwarya and Amitabh.

On day five it’s about Bachchan and Shah Rukh, day six on being conferred with the French Legion D’Honneur, day seven… well, even God took the day off.

Lastly, Shah Rukh Khan “hum aapka intezar kar rahe hain’’ this evening. To see if you can keep up the genial good-humoured performance without letting on (that you are performing). Khan began with a cheery nervousness and Amit ji’s mannerisms, lost the nervousness, discarded Amit ji, but retained the cheeriness, added boyish effervescence and achieved mission impossible: dispel comparisons with Amit ji.

On his own, “boys and girls’’ (and let’s not forget “Googi’’ and “Venky’’) he is “playing very, very, very well’’ for Rs 70 lakh per episode and this is “very, very, very exciting’’ for all his fans. Now if only he would speak less ask more (questions), take the game a little more seriously (because that is the point of KBC) and himself a little less frivolously — give fewer hugs, high fives and more facts behind answers, play quiz master more and Shah Rukh Khan less, he would be AB+.

And why do we get the feeling that everything has been rehearsed a little too obviously?