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Hindi News: channels of cheap thrillsWelcome to the world of Hindi News, an orgiastic proposition that promises orgasms galore with each piece of choicest sleaze from the deepest crevices of the country.30 August, 2007:
Flipping through the pages inside the magazine took you through semi-fictitious, sensational accounts of the life and times of non-descript felons, wayward women, and all kinds of hanky-panky one could ever fantasize. These were the supposed crime and suspense periodicals. One found less of crime inside, more of hilariously shocking accounts of incidents that took somewhere in the mohalla of Azamgarh. Return of Cheap ThrillsYears later, the cheap thrills make a comeback – and how! Switch your television on, and browse through all the Hindi news channels. You will know what I mean. A few days back, on India Television, the only news that was doing the rounds was Sanjay Dutt’s release. Nothing wrong with that – but what would you say if the news headline read Munnabhai ki Rihai? Watching this piece is virtually a blow-by-blow (pun very deliberately intended) account of how Sanjay Dutt couldn’t sleep at night, what the weather inside the jail is like, how people are thronging at Pune to welcome their hero (who has been convicted under the Arms act, but who cares). The reporters even asked some of the fans to sing for Sanju Baba – and they obliged with their bhaktiful renditions of pedestrian bhajans for Sanjay Dutt. You can't get more sickeningly servile than that! Crime Calls the Shots
Similar shows on other channels have created a unique persona for the presenter – one is a bearded, rather aggressive, angry denouncer of immorality in Indian society. Another is a cheap Sohaib Ilyasi imitation, while still another is a lady whose manner of narrating the crime would make Agatha Christie turn in her own grave. Murder, she never wrote! Supernatural News
Stars and Stars
News Comic
Headlines rocking the world and the
nation are reduced to a fast-scrolling
ticker, which gives you a headache if
you manage to train your eyes on it.
And beneath the ticker, you have a
sponsored ticker. Trust the channels
to find sponsors from underwear to
fairness creams to laxatives. So, if
they are talking about Manmohan Singh,
you have Vi John Shaving Cream in the
ad ticker. If the news is on public
nudity, the ad reads Swagat Baniyan.
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Visiting
the corner magazine stands as a kid
used to be fun, especially when my
parents did not accompany me. It gave
me a chance to flip through the pages
of a certain breed of publications –
no, not sleazy, but the cheesy
Manohar Kahaniyan, or Satya
Kathas. Story titles for your
reading pleasure only – Jawani ke
Josh ki Bhool, Lipstick ka Rang,
Chudail ki Hawas – accompanied
with buxom, gaudy women displaying
ample cleavage on the cover were
surefire attention getters.
Or
check out ACP Arjun, again a
crime special on India TV. One of the
highlights of the show was how a
‘lesbian couple’ in Shahjahanpur (UP)
paid to get someone who opposed their
liaison killed. If you watched the
entire story, you’d understand how
easy it is to sensationalize the
incident. The fact that the women in
question here are lesbian is played up
as the motivating factor for the
killing. Apparently, the husband of
one of the accused wanted a threesome
with them – another angle played up by
the channel. Thank you for the
titillating account, but aren’t we
missing the big picture here – the
frustration of lesbian lovers who
faced ridicule by their kin, and the
society at large that forced them to
take such drastic action?
Take
another example of Kal Kapal
Mahakal on Zee News – a program
that deals with the supernatural.
Ramsay Brothers, move over. Reality
News is taking over. With your
screechy, scary music to boot. The
show not only talks about unexplained
phenomena (remember the slick X
Files?), but goes overboard with
re-enacted events, repeated over and
over again, complete with special
effects a child of three wouldn’t get
scared of. And talking of scary
phenomena, India TV (once again) ran
an extensive report on a particular
witch haunting the streets of small
towns and villages in eastern UP and
Bihar. In an attempt to do away with
people’s superstitions, all that the
channel managed to do was splash the
image of an obviously demented old
woman, and even the reporters seem to
be taking a dig at the poor state she
was in – asking her questions she was
not capable of answering.
All
for the TRP game, no Hindi news
channel wants to be left behind. You
have daily horoscopes, solutions by
pundits and tarot card readers playing
to the gallery. As if the news doesn’t
get depressing enough, who wants to
know if today a crow will defecate on
my head or a colleague will crunch my
family jewels at a meeting with the
top brass. If it’s not
bhavishyavani, it is Bollywood.
You have shows that give you sneak
peeks at star bedrooms, bathrooms,
toilet seats, doormats, trash cans,
and everything they dispose off the
streets of tinsel town. One is spoiled
for choice between all the C-grade
starlets inaugurating a Chandni Beauty
Parlour, rehearsing for an
up-and-coming item number at some
godforsaken town somewhere in the
middle of nowhere, making muah-muah
appearances at page 3 parties thrown
by a paunchy whats-his-name business
honcho.