Channel surfer
By
Randeep
Wadehra
India has well and truly entered
the ‘Age of Tinsel Values’ wherein form is more important than content. The
glitzier the form the more voluble the public response, as demonstrated by our
supposedly educated and thinking people who hang on to every word dripping down
an actor’s glamorous lips. Genuine social reformers have been pushed into a
corner. Be that as it may, Satyamev Jayate, “Truth alone triumphs”, is
today’s reality; a TV show that brings all the societal pathos into our drawing
rooms while keeping the reality’s tactile stink at bay.
But ‘Satyamev Jayate’ is also a
Sanskrit aphorism which is taken with fistfuls of salt and dollops of cynicism
today. After a long battle of attrition truth’s triumph over falsehood
invariably turns out to be symbolic and pyrrhic. Witness the three women in Satyamev
Jayate’s inaugural episode of 06 May: Amisha Yagnik, Parveen Khan and Mitu
Khurana. Admittedly, the show’s major infirmity is the absence of counterpoints
from their respective husbands/kin-in-law. Nevertheless, the three women had
suffered at the hands of their husbands and/or in-laws. Nothing can restore
their self-esteem and mental peace; violence is a very demeaning instrument
used in breaking a person’s pride. Then there were clips of a sting operation
on female feticide, which would supposedly have moved Rajasthan’s CM to action
against the killer medicos; but he responded with ineffective officialese.
Truth triumphs? Bah!
The second episode on 13 May
focused on child abuse. Among other things, Aamir Khan’s interaction with
children in the episode’s concluding part left one wondering. The children were
from the upper middleclass stratum where vulnerability to sexual abuse is less
when compared to, say, lower socioeconomic strata; the plight of street
children is pathetic. All the advice given by him would have gone over the
heads of children from the poorer classes – assuming that they were able to see
the show.
On the same day at 8 pm Sony
premiered the Kareena Kapoor-Imran Khan starrer Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu.
Without any warning from the censor bosses or the TV channel we watched, in a
party scene at the film’s beginning, a matronly lady touch Imran’s derriere in
the most improper manner, while winking lewdly. This was supposed to be a movie
for middleclass drawing rooms wherein the entry of Dirty Picture had
been banned, remember? Surfing channels one found Zee TV’s reality show, Dance
India Dance, featuring child artistes. A five year old girl shakes her behind,
spreads her arms to do belly dance while shaking something that was absent in
the anatomy of a child of her age, and winks suggestively. In reply to the judges’
query she innocently gives full credit to her mom!
To what purpose Aamir’s
pontifications when the common child is inheriting contrary values from the
popular media? He advised the children in his show on what comprised
inappropriate touching; that they should report to the adult they trusted if
anybody resorted to such indecent behavior. Well, one wonders whether the
children participating in Zee TV’s DID, or watching Sony TV’s
Kareena-Imran starrer, wouldn’t look upon Aamir as someone who has gone
spectacularly off his rocker.
The show’s May 20 episode focused
on dowry. Many girls suffer brutalities at the hands of dowry-hungry in-laws.
Contrarily, Rani did a sting operation on her would-be in-laws and exposed them
to media. In Bhivandi, community elders have banned all marriage related
ostentation, including dowry. Women from the Northeast asserted that dowry
system doesn’t exist there. Interestingly, in Bihar, eligible bachelors are
abducted to be forcibly married off to girls; sans dowry! Committing crime to fight
an illegal and immoral tradition?!
Edited version published in
The Tribune dated May 27, 2012
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