Amusing and bemusing

Channel surfer

By

Randeep Wadehra

Amusingly, today’s films and film stars are increasingly depending upon TV for their success. Salman Khan, with and without Katrina Kaif, was all over the small screen promoting Ek Tha Tiger, doing a jig with Madhuri Dixit on Jhalak Dikhla Ja (Colors); and talking about the movie, Kaif and himself on several news channels. Headlines Today came up with a special show on Ek Tha… while ABC News featured him in Vyakti Vishesh, and Aaj Tak telecast a scandal concocted from video clips featuring Khan and Kaif. It is amusing how TV news has hyped the flick, as if it were a trailblazer. Way back in 1967 Jeetendra had done it all in Farz and earned the ‘Indian Bond’ sobriquet. And, who can forget Dharmendra’s 1968 spy blockbuster Aankhen that had certainly set a benchmark for this genre? Neither of these two movies was aided by TV hype or hi-tech special effects that have added so much oomph to Ek Tha…

Unlike its earlier seasons, this time the Comedy Circus Grand Finale (Sony) was relatively tepid sans razzamatazz. Admittedly, the formula that allows free rein to expressions has encouraged some interesting experiments with comedy; but, season after season, with the same set of performers – Kapil, Krishna, Sudesh etc – the performance graph had inevitably flattened. Hope the next season will bring in new talent and new ideas that would be original and entertaining with high comic quotient.

When Anna Hazare exited from the national capital – with a half-baked political vision and an agenda that suddenly had no takers – Baba Ramdev appeared, promising a “revolution” but simmering down to a two-day futile fast and left after harvesting praises from politicos like Sharad Yadav and Nitin Gadkari. However, Nitin Gadkari was not so full of compliments for “Babaji” in his interview with Barkha Dutt on NDTV; bemusing, indeed.

The recent Hindu exodus from Pakistan saw Newshour (Times Now) encounter barefaced denial from Pakistani panelists. No matter how Arnab Goswami phrased and rephrased his questions the two gentlemen wouldn’t even admit that minorities in Pakistan are being systematically harassed. Kokrajhar’s “aftereffects” led to TV discussions wherein panelist Sudheendra Kulkarni thought that the Prime Minister should have gone into the Kokrajhar carnage’s root cause in his I-Day speech! PM doing sociopolitical analysis from the Red Fort’s ramparts would have been absolutely bemusing.

The Last Word (CNN-IBN) discussions on the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill were stimulating. The need for making judges accountable was balanced with the caution against likely tampering with the constitutional principle of judicial independence. Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee’s attack on judiciary divided TV mandarins into opposite camps. One side advocated her prosecution while the other scoffed at the very idea. Soli Sorabjee advised (Times Now) against pressing the contempt-of-court charges against her. However, a PIL against Mamata offers her an opportunity for grandstanding as victim of one more conspiracy! Amusing? Not when the judiciary and the politicians careen down the collision course.