Opinion Inside the Jungle
The boots were cool and simultaneously signalled gravitas.
The boots were cool and simultaneously signalled gravitas. That was also the case,as it usually is,with the wearer of the boots. But aside from Amitabh Bachchans charisma and his boots,NDTVs telethon on Save the Tiger was a perplexing experience. Perplexing in a fun sort of way,mind you,as in,if tigers watched TV,they would have had a few giggles.
Somewhere in the Pench tiger reserve,an NDTV anchor is on a machan,no not a machan,but a nicely constructed platform,all very jungle décor-like except perhaps the chairs. The anchor tells us to put our hands together for the co-hosts of the show,the camera gives us a long shot of a sleek,open-top fourwheel drive. Theres background music that rises in tempo as the vehicle comes to a stop and Bachchan and another NDTV anchor alight is this a Ram Gopal Varma movie,the bit before the casting starts? No,dummy,its an NDTV programme. Why cant news TV put up shows that start like movies? So put your hands together,and rub them in anticipation.
One NDTV anchor observed,while talking to Bachchan,that while there are other problems in this country,poverty,terrorism,you name it ,saving the tiger is also important. This is the kind of profound thesis that makes,as they say,the common man (for example,your columnist) feel very inadequate. I never thought of it like that,I told myself. But there was hope. Because Bachchan said in response that the common man need to be educated on this.
So,what did I learn,as I saw television regulars of all stripes tell us via NDTV that the tiger must be saved? I learnt that NDTVs telethon probably would have looked more convincing had the hosts been in a studio rather than a sanitised bit of a tiger reserve. I get the point about tiger reserve/Save-the-Tiger show,but theres a reason why wise people say the symbol isnt the substance. The symbolic setting demanded a degree of substantive participation on the part of all those who made time for the telethon,and that was as elusive as the big cat is in tiger reserves.
I learnt that Malaika Arora Khan got a spark in her head,as she put it,when she saw Bachchan talking on TV about the Save the Tiger campaign,this observation following Bachchans,when he said we celebrities are unaware of many things. We common men and women are also unaware of so many things,like how do TV anchors and celebrities sit on a platform in a forest clearing,changing from shirts to jackets as the day progressed,and do this for hours. If I were a tiger,I would have been very impressed. Hell,I am just a human being,and even then I am very impressed.
I also learnt a new term: poached products. This,from an NDTV correspondent interviewing Neha Dhupia in the Maharashtra Nature Park,where Ms Dhupia threw darts at a revolving dart board; anytime she missed hitting the figure of the poacher and hit a tiger or a tree,she had to make a donation,or thats what I understood. Thanking her for her contribution,the correspondent pointed out we must never use poached products except perhaps poached eggs,I thought.
I learnt that what we need to do is to create issues out of the tiger and bring the tiger from the jungle to our minds a regular TV panelist surrounded by kids wearing tiger masks,standing in front of India Gate,told us this while commending NDTV.
See,even as a common man,I commend NDTV,because raising money for tiger conservation is good. But why did I catch myself chuckling so many times,thats the question. This is a serious issue,no? As a tiger might have put it,why create issues out of me? Is it because I am on your mind?saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
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