We Indians love our entertainment especially when it comes to Cinema and Television, to the point of extream passion. And this I say from experience, after all I am no different. But today somehow I feel we are treading more on the lines of stupidity. I mean what else you would call a group of ladies marching up to Star India’s office to protest against death of their favorite character (Mihir Virani from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi) and demand his revival.
For sometime now, Ekta Kapoor and her saas-bahu shows have been at the receiving end of many such useless dharnas organized by either utterly bored housewives or media attention desperate political activists. Either the audience is peeved by the inclusion of "rape" scene in primetime soap or it’s the enactment of controversial topics such as Euthanasia.
But to place the blame entirely on Ms. Kapoor would also un-fair. In 2004, the Republican Party of India (RPI) held demonstrations outside television channel’s office to vent their anger against Kyunki‘s lead protagonist Smriti Iraani producer Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms.
The RPI activists were protesting what they termed an "insult to the Indian Constitution" (and by extension to Dalit icon and the man who penned this holy grail the late Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar) in an episode of Kyunkii which aired on 22 December. During this episode, Tulsi decried the fact that the Indian Constitution is ambiguous on the issue of marital rape. [Indian Television.Com]
Obviously in this case, RPI was only interested in generating some self-publicity because it is in-fact very true that in the Indian court of law for a woman to win a case of marital rape is practically next to impossible. So instead of demanding for relevant changes to be brought under the marital rape section, our leaders chose to harp around non-existent issues.
However such baseless controversies don’t just start and finish at family dramas, with the increasing popularity of Reality Shows, our madness rating has also taken a jump ten notches higher. First it was Shilpa Shetty and her famous cat-fight in the Big Brother house which instead was branded as loyalty towards one’s country. Racism by its true definition continues to take place in the corners of London City and many Indian metropolitans but seriously who cares, it only made Shilpa a house-hold name and gave Channel 4 the much needed TRPs.
Just couple of weeks back, Star News aired a report where a large group of old and young where burning effigies and shouting slogans against judges of a popular talent hunt show just because one of their favorites got eliminated. And I wonder how many more effigies will be burnt and public property be damaged by Amit Paul’s supporters over Prashant Tamang’s win in yesterday’s finale of Indian Idol.
Frankly speaking, I really find this difficult to digest. I mean, it’s absolutely fine to be rooting for your ideal one but taking it to the streets and that too for the very wrong reasons; is just way too ridiculous.
Rather than being played like pawns in the hands of various Television Networks, the so-called Creative Heads, in their never ending TRP games – it’s high time that we started investing our time and effort in dealing with concerns that actually do matter in the real sense.
[Cross-Posted on My India Report]
Comments
6 comments | Add your comment »
Amrita
Sep 24th, 2007 at 6:19 pm | #
On the other hand you have the very convenient memory these same people possess – today India wins the T20 cup and everybody is talking about Dhoni the ghar ka beta, six months ago they were destroying his house. Same goes with Irfan Pathan and pretty much anyone else you want to talk about. Shows you just how “valid” these “grievances” are.
Nimra
Sep 24th, 2007 at 10:14 pm | #
People just allow their emotions to get the best of them and only react. That is the problem though. Your heart is not always right, but somehow they forget the fact that the person who committed the “mistake” is human too, and life is not always fair. Not everyone has their A game every day, and the best do not always win. Karunya did not win Idol last year. One could even argue that the Idol runner-ups are always more talented and deserving than the winners. But for many it is not simply entertainment, they allow themselves to become so emotionally involved that it crushes them more than the actual participants that take it as a game. To paraphrase what Amit said, “Don’t be sad for me, Shillong.” But somehow I don’t know if people will heed that advice.
Amit
Sep 25th, 2007 at 2:34 am | #
These are simply ways to keep citizens occupied in meaningless issues and divert their attention from relevant issues in a democracy that matter.
Shweta
Sep 25th, 2007 at 6:53 am | #
what we need to realize is that these are just tactics of channels to increase their ratings so that they can charge more money from the advertisers. no one really cares about the audience. its time that we dictate our names and not just follow what they show us.
nice blog.
Sonal
Sep 25th, 2007 at 3:03 pm | #
Agreed that there a ton of pointless issues and events are made big by television channels, but I do think that this is also a positive for our country. Until recently we used to sit back and let our politicians and other big wigs do as they wished. In the recent past, we, as a nation, have started holding these same people accountable. We are now more confident about our ability to bring change. I attribute a lot of this change to the fact that television and news channels literally spoon feed us and stuff current events, opinions, etc etc down our throats – even on stupid issues. So while television channels do their thing for higher TRPs, we as a people will hopefully continue become more aware and continue to get the confidence to bring change in our lives and in our communities! Now we just wait for maturity to kick in, so we can distinguish between real and irrelevant issues.
Gaurav
Sep 26th, 2007 at 12:22 pm | #
Good post as always Sakshi. But I don’t think anything will come out of it, bottom line we Indians never learn. As Amrita pointed out, T 20 winners will be treated as Gods only till the next time they fail…then they will be treated worst than mortals.