Waving the wand

By beaming inanities,TV news can wish Dantewada away

By beaming inanities,TV news can wish Dantewada away?
Forget the report cards on the UPA government that dominated NDTV,CNN-IBN; forget the Dantewada Maoist incident and the hullabaloo that passes for serious discussion,time to bring the magic back into the news. Recently,on News 24,one gentleman folded a newspaper into a mock vessel,poured a glass of water into the hollow,then opened up the newspaper and abracadabra,it was completely dry. He,then,cut it up,performed some more mumbo-jumbo and hey presto!,hes pouring water back into the glass from the newspaper. The other gentleman,with a wave of his arms (not wand),made a flaming diya rise independently from the table and do a jig like a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance (AXN). Suitably inspired,you poof,to make them vanish into thin air. Alas,it didnt work so you use your magic wand (the remote) to switch channels.

The only channel where you can expect to see and maybe hear the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi with any reasonable degree of certainty is of course Doordarshan. We never hear what they have to say on private news channels. Rahul Gandhi surfaces occasionally,as he did at a rally in UP,but all we saw of him was a wave of his hand and he wasnt playing magician.

While the private news channels raged against the Maoist attack, DDs evening news followed Mrs Gandhi to Rae Bareli and broadcast excerpts from her rally speech. While her pronouncements may not have been breaking news,youd think private TV news would track what she says. On the NDTV-GfK MODE poll on the UPAs one year in office,over 60 per cent of respondents thought she was more powerful than the PM. That being so,presumably what she thinks or says today,the government will think or say tomorrow. Odd,news TV doesnt let us hear what she says,then.

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Instead of listening to her,we attended to TVs yoga guru (Aaj Tak). In Ramdev 200.0,the baba-politician informed us that had there been less pollution in India he would have lived for 400 years (if thats not magic what is?). Alas,the carbon emissions from modern lifestyles have reduced his lifespan by half and he now expects to live for no more than 200 years. This on Tuesday evening,soon after more than 30 people,some very young,had been killed in the Maoist attack. That Aaj Tak telecast it at prime time,that we watched it,suggests they know what grabs the viewers attention: the more bizarre the better.

The Miss India show was not exactly weird but it was a little off,like leftovers (Sony). The contestants were lovely enough,Mandira Bedi looked super cool in whatever it was she wore,and at least one judge,Sania Mirza,looked like she was just married in a red dress and earrings dangling like branches in a breeze. Rohit Roy,alongside Bedi,cracked jokes only he understood but never mind,it was all in good fun.

The show,however,appeared to be about everyone but the contestants. It was edited in such a manner that we heard lots from the anchors,including delectable toffee wrapping homilies such as Life is a box of chocolates,something sweet is waiting for you (Bedi). We saw plenty of the eye candy judges Shilpa Shetty,Vijender,Kunal Kapoor,Sania,etc and film directors Madhur Bhandarkar,Vipul Shah (there to choose girls for their films). And finally we watched performances galore by Lara Dutta,Shahid Kapoor,Salman Khan,Salim Merchant… It was all rather like a film awards event. We caught just glimpses of the contestants. Also,such shows are more for the sponsors than the viewers: they are elongated beyond their natural length to accommodate as many TV commercials as possible. It was approximately 11.30 pm when the winners were to be announced. On a Sunday night thats very late for an early Monday work day morning.