Good Evening

“Good Evening , and welcome to the World This Week.”. This was Prannoy Roy in The World This Week in a not so connected world around more than a decade and a half back. These were the times when we clamoured in front of the telly sets to get a glance of what was happening around us. No news channels , no entertainment channels, just news in hindi at 9:00 PM and the news in English at 10:00 PM.

And all of us used to wait in earnest for Prannoy Roy at 10:30 PM on Friday nights for “The World This Week” where he would give us the happenings around the world. That’s when we used to see Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeni fighting it out in the middle east. Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev moving towards ending the world war, the wars in the Honduras et. al. This was the time when “News” and TV Journalism had real meaning.

Then came the satellite revolution, with channels streaming in from all quarters. There came Zee and thus started the era of the Soap Operas. This was followed by 24*7 movie and more recently news channels. And so out very own endearing Prannoy Roy of yore ends up launching a 24*7 news channel himself and with it the old adage of responsible media flew out of the window and by now I guess its even out of orbit.

Today we have numerous news channels, and honestly switching between any channel at any point of time doesn’t make you feel that you’ve switched to a different channel altogether. Yeah its true that the faces change, but the kind of silly journalism that exists today spans across all news channels.

Firstly due to the advent of so many news channels, the concept of “News” being a valuable commodity has disappeared. News is more or less like air, waiting to be inhaled, its there whether you like it or not. The only difference between air and news is that, you can choke a person and cut off his air supply and he’ll die ,that’ll become news, but try to choke news, again that becomes a news, its that persistent, too bad it doesn’t become air. That would’ve been more useful.

The channels have to keep running 24*7, so to fill in the slots they need something to air. That’s called Breaking News, some crap that keeps scrolling at the bottom of your telly screens whenever you switch on a news channel. And when a hapless reporter goes to the place where maybe deve gowda kept his eyes open for a full minute , he goes on interviewing people and asking relentless questions like ‘what’s the shape of his eyes? What’s the color of his eyes? And how does he look like with his eyes open? Whilst making claims that his channel is the first to bring you that piece of crap that you may call news.

You get bored of this and switch on to another channel where you find another dude going with a secret camera to a place and telling you that the guy lives in the house has been guilty of trying to force his way into his own house (now that he’s lost the key to his own house and is trying to break open the lock is immaterial). Now the media runs to the local police and try to round them up for not stopping the guy for entering his own house.

Then a channel decided to come up with a crime round up and others followed suit. So now across the whole plethora of satellite junk you have a host of funny guys making funnier gestures whilst trying to warn you all the while that you’re not safe. Of course we’re not safe and we don’t need to be told that. Watching all those gestures makes you wonder whether he’s choking and you may certainly die of boredom if not laughter. Yeah, I agree we’re not safe.

Now like that’s not enough they decide to spook you, and take you to places which they claim are haunted with B grade music from Ramsey moves running in the background, they visit places at night and claim that nobody visits those haunts as they’re haunted. Poor ghosts (if they do exist) would already have run for their lives when they knew what kinda idiots were coming upon them. Believe me its these guys that are scary and not the ghosts.

As if this was not enough each of the channels have their own reality show. Now watching any of them any time makes me wonder whether a person crying or going hyper just because he’s on camera can be termed as “Reality”. Also someday I’d like these satellite buggers telling me how much of “Real Cash” was paid to those people to get that “Reality” done.

The funniest part of it all, the sports capsules whenever any match is going on (be it cricket , football or any other sport). The funniest part being cricket as it’s the national pastime of the country. We have the likes of Maninder Singh and a Syed Saba Karim telling millions of viewers how Yuvraj Singh should improve his footwork or Rahul Dravid should play the hookshot. If I remember correctly, the same Maninder Singh was a person (national waste /discard one should say). Who never got up to a cumulative score of 51 in his entire career. Saba Karim was a super expressway right behind the stumps. The less said the better and the less he says about wicket keeping, still better.

Sometime back , a news channel tried to play peace maker between a wannabe singer and a wannabe wannabe. The wannabe singer on his birthday kissed the wannabe wannabe and she went ballistic on international television shouting “Hindustani nari “ and stuff like that while Mr Lucky Lips was licking his lips in gusto all the time. Well jokes apart there’s one thing I’d like to say , people have better things to do, so they just don’t care who screws around with whom.

The most pathetic displays of crappy attitude of the reporters comes during the natural and man made calamities when they run about asking questions like “Aapko kaisa lag raha hai”. Now hell, is a person with his hand blown away in a blast supposed to feel ecstatic” for god’s sake, when will these guys learn? Honestly speaking these media junkies should be cordoned off from those areas during the calamities.

Yeah, the media does a fairly good job sometimes bringing us news on time and other informative stuff. There are channels like CNBC TV18 who still know how to do that. But its time the others understood that they have a responsibility towards society, and running a news channel is not all about entertainment and glamour. It’s more about discharging your debt to the society that you are responsible to and get the people to realize the same.

:: Antya ::

Dogs of War

It’s been quite some time since we came up with an article, thanks to various reasons that kept the three of us occupied. Komodo and Antagonist still busy with their work, I thought I’d take this opportunity to update the blog.

Last week was quite eventful. The Mumbai blasts being the most talked about of all the incidents and that’s justified too. Everyone in this world did expect this to happen someday, probably more because of the fact that Mumbai has got everything going for it and any such incident would create a huge impact on each and every individual.

It was disappointing to see the pictures of bodies lying all over the place and train compartments ripped apart…. the same trains I traveled in for almost a decade. I still remember cursing the trains and all the pushing and pulling I had to go through on any given day in Mumbai. But later when I shifted base, I realized the attachment I had developed to such a life style and it might sound a little weird but I actually started missing it.

Anyways, back to the blasts. The news channels never wasted a minute to capture as much as they could and come up with their own versions of the story. There has always been this talk about the resilience of Mumbai, which I till date feel is a bit too hyped. And 7/11 was no different. Even before the bodies were cleared and victims were admitted to hospitals, the media had started debates and discussions on the ‘resilience of Mumbai’ and the participants??? Don’t ask.

I still fail to understand what’s the agenda behind such discussions. Firstly why was that topic brought up? What are we trying to convey to the people responsible for the blasts? Are we trying to invite them to ‘You kill my neighbor, I go to work tomorrow’ game? And what’s with someone blaming Pakistan for the terrorist camps established there? Terrorist camps are there all over the place and blaming just one country for it is no solution. Let us first look into our back yard before putting the blame on someone. We ask our neighbors to shut down terrorist camps in their territory and they ask us to do the same. This saga never seems to end. What do we mean by banning these camps? These camps are not cola drinks that can be banned by a certain George Fernandez in power. If the people whose main aim is to kill others were so civilized and followed govt. orders, then this problem would never have raised. I have no clue why people are given the publicity they don’t deserve. The media has consistently failed to prioritize things and this is a perfect example. A certain news channel quickly grabbed the opportunity to interview Ms. Bhutto (where was she all these days) and ask her as to what she would have done if she were in power and Ms. Bhutto being the opportunist she is, started the blame game. Agreed such interviews make a good watch but then, is this really required at this point in time. We have better work to be done for better people.

The blasts could have been avoided but I guess it’s easier said than done. Fine, the blasts took place. But now what? The media could have definitely tackled the situation in a better way than asking irrelevant people to talk on the resilience of Mumbai city. I personally refuse to accept the fact that people of Mumbai are resilient. They are just too busy to be even thinking of such incidents. I have seen sights when a train runs over an individual and it takes just five minutes for the surroundings to return to normality. I do agree that people are helpful but such a nature also has its boundaries. This whole concept of resilient Mumbai is inviting trouble. This is neither 1947 nor the people responsible for the attacks are British against whom such tricks will work. We are just trying to cover up our shortcomings and resilience is the name we are giving to our inabilities.

I am sure a month later, no one would even think of 7/11. The only time the masses will remember the incident is on the same day, next year when again an issue is made out of it, there would again be a debate. Nothing’s gonna change because we have got used to the ‘chalta hai’ attitude that we have developed over the past decades. History will definitely repeat itself, not sure who the victims would be then. What’s sure is someone’s gonna lose badly and the rest will get back to work the next day.

-- AHAK

Rounding Off The World Cup

Sunday's final was one of the greatest games played in this world cup by far. A phenomenal game as komodo sms’d me in the middle of the game.

Going back a few games from yesterday..
2 of the 4 quarter finals were decided by penalties. Germany getting the better of Argentina, which was nothing short of a heartbreak for me, but the way germany had been playing in this tournament was something of a consolation that the argentines got beaten by a good team.
Italy then beat Ukraine in the quarters 3 – 0 with striker luca toni scoring twice.
England were beaten 1-3 on penalties. Thus Portugal setting up a semi final clash with France.
A Thierry henry nudge from a zidane free kick ensured france a victory over brazil, well deserved as the brazillians looked lacklusture throughout the tournament with the only exception being the match against japan. The biggest letdown in this world cup has been ronaldinhio and also kaka to an extent.

The semi finals were an interesting affair. The hosts Germany were ousted by the Italians in easily one of the best performances put in by both teams. The match was goalless at full time, with italy doing what they do best. DEFEND and as always cannavaro being the star of the game. Grosso and Alessandro Del Pierro scored in the dying moments of the second half of extra times to deny germany a place in the final.

Portugal were ousted by france with a solitary goal to set up a gaul vs roman showdown as TOI put it on Sunday morning.

On Saturday Oliver Kahn leading germany for the last time ensured that germany got a consolation 3rd place with a 3 – 1 win over Portugal.

Sundays final meant Zidane’s comeback finally bore fruit, with history against them the Italians settled down after a nervous first few minutes. Malouda earned them a penalty by faking a dive with zidane scoring a rather peculiar goal.
A Materazzi header meant that italy equalized in the 19th minute. The Italians raised their game after that and the score still read 1-1 at full time. The first half of extra time passed without incident but with 10 minutes remaining in the second half of extra time Zinedine Zidane headbutted Materazzi in his chest and got sent off, thus rounding off an illustrious career with a not so illustrious act. The Italians were unable to capitalize on zidanes absence as there was not much time remaining as well. The game finally went to penalties with david trezeguet from france missing his chance and thus giving italy their 4th title.

The Italians it seemed had a plan for everyone, Gattuso negating any magic that Zidane would have worked , which probably ended up in getting Zidane frustrated. Also all air play with passing the ball over Vierra and Makelele’s heads.
The trio of Gigi Buffon , Cannavaro and Genarro Gattuso can be probably made out to be the heart of the Italian Team.
It was a great sight to see the Italians win, they played some real good football in this tournament.
A few greats have called it a day, Zidane, Kahn, Paultea and Figo. Also maybe ronaldo, carlos, del pierro, cannavaro will not play another world cup.

It was a great world cup all in all with a fitting finale and a deserving winner.