TELEVISTA
Ways of seeing India at 60
Amita Malik

Among all the rat races on TV, nothing keeps the channels as happy and competitive as the polls. They reach their climax during elections, although exit polls leave most poll experts red in the face. But while they last, polls keep everybody on their toes, except perhaps the bored and cynical viewer.

Well, now we are, or were, up to Independence Day, in the midst of opinion polls on the state of the nation, which has entered middle age. Since our politicians in power are mostly 70 plus, 60 is no longer considered old, since, unlike bureaucrats, politicians do not retire at 60.

Among the tidal wave of opinion polls, I enjoyed most I for India, conducted with his usual panache by Vikram Chandra on NDTV. It asked both the aam janata and a distinguished panel a series of questions on every aspect, pleasant and unpleasant, on Indian life at 60. The panel included, among others, Fali S. Nariman and writer Manju Kapoor. The cultural side (although he is now a politician) was represented by Shyam Benegal.

Understandably, the more popular aspects of Indian life brought about a vast difference in the reactions of either side. While Mother India won hands down with the general public in the category of best film, the panel voted for Pather Panchali led by Benegal. The alternatives for India’s worst moment of shame included the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, Operation Bluestar, Babri Masjid, the Gujarat riots and the Emergency, not to forget corruption.

While the jury voted strongly for the Emergency, which cut at the very roots of democracy, the general public, since it has probably suffered the most, put corruption at the head of the list. I was a little disappointed that in the category of best song, only the Hindi cinema was considered and, predictably, Aey Mere Watan won hands down, although Nariman does not seem to have heard of it and had only seen Mother India out of the films in competition.

No songs by Tagore, Subramaniam Bharathi and other distinguished composers and songwriters from outside the Hindi cinema, let alone the Hindi belt, were considered. So even in this important national poll, the Hindi cinema took pride of place.

But when it came to cricket, both expert analysts and ordinary viewers minced no words when it came to Dravid’s unpopular decision not to make England follow on. Even the exuberant players at the end of a one-match victory did not soothe the feelings of an irate public and expert panels.

But I would like to put on record that for the first time one actually saw Dravid smile on the field, instead of his perpetual myopic, worried expression, so different from Sourav Ganguly’s relaxed look while captain, and Sachin Tendulkar’s endearing, almost child-like, glee when taking a wicket.

The week had its share of the sordid and the cruel. Imagine Budhia accusing his coach of physical and mental torture and his widowed mother backing him up. Then the terrible item of two men pouring acid and kerosene and setting on fire a fashion designer, a very beautiful mother of two in her early thirties, allegedly at the behest of her husband’s girlfriend, made for very depressing viewing. In fact, when one sees the headline one-liners running at the bottom of the screen, there are days when one sees nothing but disaster news. Truly has it been said that bad news is news and good news is not.

TAILPIECE: I wonder at the immaturity of Star Cricket Channel which was covering the recent India-England Test series. The channel had a few distracting lines running on the screen throughout the matches. It said it was illegal for any cable operator to run the match. Quite right. But it went on to ask the "Dear viewer" (sic) to ring up one of the four eight-digit telephone numbers shown and report that he was watching an allegedly illegal channel. First of all, if he is given an illegal channel through no fault on his part, why should the viewer, enjoying his match, ask for it to be discontinued? I think it is the duty of the Star Cricket Channel, if it is so concerned about illegal cable channels, to post its own monitors to keep track of cable channels breaking the law and take direct action. It is downright silly and over-optimistic to expect viewers to do their monitoring for them and in the process lose watching the match. How na`EFve can you get?