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Journalism of Courage
Enjoy!
It8217;s not been an invigorating fortnight for me. A stomach flu followed by a listless malaise meant I spent a large part of my waking hours indoors and in bed. This coupled with a sense of frustration for not having any quality work to sink my teeth into made me turn on the television and not switch it off for hours on end. After I overdosed on BBC and Discovery I moved on to the one channel I thought I had out grown. MTV. And to my surprise I found that I could not switch it off.
I cannot help but smirk when I recall my early meetings with MTV bosses of yore. I8217;m talking of another time in the near past when MTV was setting up shop and had plans to relaunch its Asia/India operations. I was youngthen and was considered a cutting-edge television producer 8212; due partly to my age and wholly self-styled!
Many hours were spent with the gora chamdas who came and lived at the Oberoi and invited you to expensive lunches at the Rotisserie. quot;MTV is aimed at the young. It8217;s not going to be a me-too channel and follow Channel V 8230; no Hindi film music nonsense 8230; it8217;s our policy to create a common world youth culture8230; Sure we8217;ll encourage local pop and rock artistes but where is that breed in India 8230; it doesn8217;t exist and it8217;s gonna be too expensive to create that market 8230; but anyway Indian youth want US/UK bands 8230; they want chart stuff 8230; whatever happens, no Hindi film music. We are different 8230; we are the free your mind generation 8230; the rest will follow!quot;
Dream team
And the rest has followed 8230; unplanned for the most part, costly mistakes a plenty, and a lot of humble pie to choke on. But MTV of 1998 is way ahead of Channel V. And this has to do with several key talentsthat have gravitated to the channel since the unceremonious but some would say deserved sacking of Chandni Seghal and bringing in of Natasha Malhotra, a hitherto lucklustre advertising personality.
Not known in the trade for being an easy person to get along with Natasha has held on to a seat that many enviously have eyed including this scribe! and worked wonders with a team that includes Cyrus Oshidar, Ravi Udyaavar, and not least Mishaal Verma. These people were able to convince the non-talents in New York that Indian advertisers were not willing to wait for free minds. They wanted pure unadulterated enjoyment.
Mishaal Verma, methinks, will one day in the distant future be felicitated grandly for being one of the lasting contributors to popularising youth culture in radio and television media. He is to the 8217;90s what Amin Sayani was for the 708217;s. He is not only a performer but also a participant in shaping the tastes and thinking of a whole generation. Not a flash kind of guy he will outlive all theayaaTrivedis and gayaaReddys of broadcast for his approach has a touch of classic timelessness. Bored in the evenings 8230; then be sure to tune in to Radio Mid-Day and see how wonderfully he hosts The Sundown Show. It sure beats having to go to art galleries or pretentious theatre8230; quot;Sare jahaan se acha Mishaal Verma hamaraquot;I heard a friend say yesterday.
Now, I shouldn8217;t be giving advice when not asked, but I do feel MTV needs to look out for what could very soon become a tiresome ploy. Almost every promo in a bid to be subversive ends up with cross dressing8230; its funny, wild and cutting edge for sure but, hey guys, it8217;s Music TeleVision and not Musical TransVestism we8217;re promoting. Right? Or, so I recall being told three years ago.
And Vee?
AND wither Channel V in all this? Well it still has a future but needs a major rethinking in its strategy. Hinglish is a been-there-done-it idea. Time to move on. Time to look less like a tent show compared to MTV. Andas any half-baked professional television producer will tell you that requires not money, not bureaucracy, but good conceptualisers and writers. Go on, twist my arm8230;hire me.
More music
And a final musical note before I trill off in my self-indulgent, white, wet sari. Thank the gods for Sony Music! Their output is like a breath of fresh air and has revitalised the joy of buying music. It8217;s just the kick in the pants the tone-deaf daddies at HMV and Polygram needed in order to get their own acts together. At Sony, a funky youthful team is bringing out amazing music on superior quality tapes. Just heard that their executives get sent to Greece for marketing and sales training. Yes, fun in the sun and a free spirit is what music is about.
I8217;m all set to sleep 8212; in these coming days by my bay window overlooking the stormy Arabian Sea and watch fantastic music videos Sanjay Maroo, Silk Route etc8230; or listening to the testosterone magic of Ricky Martin. I8217;ll take in some sports as well but onlythose that have music videos attached. Um.. Pos8230; Tres8230; Ole Ole Ole!
