Archive for the 'Media' Category

Middle Class Guilt And Satyamev Jayate

It’s not easy being middle-class. Rising prices. Sweatier traffic jams. Global warming. And then there is that thing which keeps gnawing away at us, ceaselessly, like a rat at a sack of grain.

Guilt.

Guilt at how shallow we have become, how we choose that-which-is-fun over that-which-is-good. Social-media over social service. Junk food over vegetables. IPL over Tests. Katie Perry over Carnatic. Page 3 over the Editorials. “Oops pictures” over…you get the picture.

Of course, it’s never really our fault. It’s everyone else’s.

Authors write books that pander to the lowest-common-denominator. Greedy TV execs make TRP-friendly trash. Bad journalists peddle yellow copy.

If only “they” would give us something wholesome, we would consume it. And till they do, we just have to, with infinite reluctance, discuss how much weight Aishwarya Rai has gained post-pregnancy. Even though we should be talking about…mm…let’s see farmer suicides and child labor.

This pervasive guilt of course creates a demand. A demand for programming that is surreptitiously entertaining in a non-intrusive way while providing a “Look Ma, I am being socially conscious by watching this instead of a Zee re-incarnation soap” comfort-blanket to the middle-class audience.

Continue reading ‘Middle Class Guilt And Satyamev Jayate’

Rage Icon Of The Generation

I have always rued the fact that this generation lacks true rage icons. This, I believe, explains why the new Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, unlike his predecessor, breaks down into tears at every opportunity. Or why the handsome hunks in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara spent so much time discovering their Ying side.

One cannot blame the bachchas too. Because they had not grown up with Amitabh Bachchan’s angry enraged man avatar, where the tightening of jaw conveyed as much burn as three hours of the angsty Rockstar. Because they have not, at an impressionable age, felt the blast from Sunny Deol screaming “Balwaant Raii….” like Mount Krakatoa or experienced first hand his wrath as he laid to waste the Pakistani Army with just a handpump. Hell these poor kids have been brought up under the shadow of a KJo-ized namby pamby Sirish-Kunder-slapping SRK, a far cry from the lip-quivering, red-eyed, macho Madan-Chopra-penetrator which is how we like to remember him.

Continue reading ‘Rage Icon Of The Generation’

Uncle Pai

In the bedroom,  in the narrow space between the foot of the bed and the old wooden bookcase, was my own little corner. Growing up, I would squeeze in that narrow space, open the lower shelves (the ones near the ground) and bring out piles of Amar Chitra Katha and leaf through them, one by one.

It didnt matter that I had read them, like a thousand times before. Like a favorite song or a favorite person, Amar Chitra Kathas had repeat-value, you could discover and re-discover them, marveling only at how much you missed last time.

Continue reading ‘Uncle Pai’

Radia Activity

[This post is a somewhat longer version of this earlier post, reflecting some updates since this was written]

In Hindi movies, on which we grew up, the villain may be a politician, a policeman, a businessman or even a priest. But in very few movies, would you find a newspaperman “editor-sahaab” to be anything but a knight in shining armor who even though he might not make it alive till the intermission would never compromise on his ideals. Maybe that is why  while we expect our politicians and the police to be corrupt (and they unfailingly exceed our expectations), for the person carrying a pencil and a clipboard our standards are very different.

Continue reading ‘Radia Activity’

The Dawat

[Opening bars of the Bhojpuri song: "Set kara di life he Baba Dhoni sangh hamaar ho" sung by a chorus of girls and Ravindra Jadeja]

Anchor: Welcome back to GBTV’s continual coverage of the Dhoni-Rawat marriage or as we call it The Dawat, perhaps the most significant media event after the Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai marriage, which again was the most significant media event after the Lord Rama-Sita wedding. In light of the gravity of the occasion, we have in our studios,  cricket expert and part-time ramp model Rameez Sivaramakrishnan Lal, who has been our chief correspondent for all Dhoni-related news.

RSL: Thanks for having me here.

Continue reading ‘The Dawat’