Opinion I say tomato

Most news channels ignore the vegetable, while Nitish turns a shade of red

(Representative image/Express Archive)

Shailaja Bajpai

August 3, 2017 12:36 AM IST First published on: Aug 3, 2017 at 12:36 AM IST

tomato, tomato high price, tomato market price, tomato price hike reasons, vegetable prices

‘Summer tomato’, harvested between May and July, sees bigger investments by farmers who expect better price realisations. (Express Archive)

Speaking of tomatoes, excuse me, why aren’t we speaking of tomatoes? They’ve reached Rs 100 per kg. Or why aren’t we crying over the price of onions which has, apparently, spiraled 119 per cent in 10 days (ABP News)? These are seasonal (vegetable) problems, we’re told. Perhaps. But they’re of far more immediate concern to the public/viewer than politicians who are men and women for all seasons. And don’t you remember that Delhi’s BJP government was brought to tears at the hustings in 1998 by onions?

Why not also discuss, debate, expose the abysmal condition of public hygiene and sanitation? When was the last time you didn’t see a male or female perform (ablutions) in public — and when, if ever, have you heard a discussion about toilets or garbage disposal or the menace of plastic? The PM cries foul but why doesn’t his Mann Ki Baat or the Swachch Bharat advertisements on TV and radio on such fundamental issues make breaking news, headlines or (super) prime time debates? If the price was right, we’d throw a few tomatoes at them.

Let’s not throw any at ABP. On Monday, at prime time, it went on the onion trail from Alwar to Nasik and onto Madhya Pradesh where it found them rotting. They bit into tomatoes too and tried to explain the price rise in both. It was a detailed, in- depth report. Odd that they should be recognised for doing what ought to be routine. More, please.

Someone who was pretty red-faced under his skin but did a good job of hiding it is Nitish Kumar. The newly sworn-in chief minister of Bihar for the nth time, was at a televised press conference on Monday, bleeding, sorry, pleading, almost for understanding of the impossible position Lalu & Sons had placed him in. By the time he proclaimed Modi as the winner of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he looked somewhat crumpled, as if someone had sat upon him.

Flashback to October 2015 and recall his stirring campaign speeches we watched during the Bihar assembly campaign when he challenged the PM to beat him in the state. On Walk the Talk (April, 2016, NDTV 24×7), soon after calling for a “Sangh mukt India”, he spoke of the BJP’s ideology that was potentially “poisonous as it divides society”; of “the need to set aside differences to fight the BJP”, etc. What a difference two years makes in politics.

If all this worldliness in politics is distasteful and soul destroying, never fear, help is near. Double digit spiritual/religious TV channels are available to salve your disillusioned heart. There are some 20-odd such channels on Tata Sky, including its own devotion channels. More than a dozen of these are related to Hindu spiritual discourse, with Lord Buddha TV, Shalom TV, God TV, Goodness TV for religious diversity. Didn’t see one devoted to Islam, which only means that they are not on the popular bandwidths because they do exist.

And what on earth is YO TV? No clue, after watching it. Speaking of Tata Sky, it has a bouquet of its own channels which offer education with entertainment and exercise: Tata Sky Fitness, Tata Sky Dance keeps you on your toes, Tata Sky Comedy plays old sitcoms for a laugh, Amitabh Bachchan promises you can learn to act (like him?) on Tata Sky Acting, there’s Classic Cinema for those who want to remember when Sunil met Nargis, Tata with Javed Akhtar for the poet in you, Tata Sky Gurus to teach you a few lessons, etcetra, etcetra. Some of it is far superior to what entertainment channels offer.

What one of them is offering just now is Pehredaar Piya Ki (Sony TV) in which nine-year-old Prince Ratan marries a woman twice his age, Diya. The age difference would be an emancipating thing for TV soaps but for Ratan being a child groom. They marry in order for her to protect him — again a liberating idea — but decidedly odd and disturbing since surely there are other ways to protect a child? Especially, when Ratan is besotted by her. It’s all very absurd, trying to attract viewers by its bizarre premise.

On news TV they scream, insult, and say even fake things, to get us to watch them; on entertainment channels they now exploit twisted fantasies. Time to return to reading.