The strange young world on TV

The strange young world on TV
Shailaja Bajpai

Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 0000 hrs


First a few questions that have nothing to do with one another.
Does it not agitate anyone (hello, political parties) that a man
convicted of killing another, who had to resign from Parliament,
still appears on TV shows and commercials? Saw Navjot Singh Sidhu on
the Great Laughter Challenge Show (Star One) as well as the
commercial for Luminous whatever and wondered at his continuing
ability to spin a bat into a ball (isn't that the kind of remark he
would make?).

Next: should anyone pay anyone over Rs 50 lakhs for 50-odd minutes
of television appearance time? That's Rs 1 lakh per minute. Sounds
excessive? It is. And it's what S.R. Khan, reportedly, is being paid
to read out questions and answers to questions he won't know most of
the answers to, by Star TV. Is there something wrong here or is it
that we are downright jealous?

Lastly, are the Hindi news channels so desperate for good news, they
need to crack jokes? How else to explain their penchant for stand-up
comics? Every day, you can catch one of them opening their mouths
for a good ha-ha at a function which the news channels choose to
cover for no other reason than to make us laugh at them. Do they
think that since they make us cry they should make us laugh too?

Please leave that to Naya Office Office (Star One). Pankaj Kapur &
Co are doing just funnily, thank-you. Proof that you don't need
stand-up comics but comic situations to evoke a smile. Last week, it
parodied our ability to find ways to be busy at doing nothing.
People read newspapers, chew paan, sleep — anything — in order not
to pick up a ringing telephone: ''time nahin hai mere paas'' is the
tagline. Watch it and forget about the laughter challenge posed by
the news channels.

If there is one kind of show that will not make you laugh no matter
how hard it tries, it's the soap opera. Instead, it will make you
tear your hair out, should you still possess any strands after
watching such shows. If you have been a regular addict of Kyunki,
Kahani or Kasauti, the three most popular shows over the last six
years, you must be mightily perplexed today. Do you know what is
going on in any of them? And who are all these people? Other than
Parvati, Prerna or Mr Bajaj, I recognise few of them. Where, for
goodness' sakes is Tulsi Virani? Is she hiding behind white hair,
voluminous sarees and calling herself Ba after her mentor? Why?

Because all the soaps have shot generations ahead of their actors.
This is evidently due to the demographic shift in India that sees
people between the ages of 18-35 dominate every sphere of life. On
TV, the fight is for their eyes.

The result? Young actresses are being forced to play grandmothers of
other actors who are younger than them off the screen. And those who
were already much older off screen have been either killed off on
the screen or simply eased out. Now we have a cast of skimpy clothes
with nose rings and stand-up hair (not comics) in starring roles.
These are the grand or great grandsons who have taken over the
family fortunes. They all look alike, behave alike and bear little
resemblance to characters. Not one of them has a distinctive look or
dialogue and no matter how hard you try you cannot figure out what
they are about or up to and why. It's all too confusing and
uninteresting. And, as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett in Gone with
the Wind, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.