Media Blues

God save the Indian television. Not long back, television used to an indispensable part of the lives of Indian people. News and entertainment are still the two critical factors driving the media in today’s world. But leave aside entertainment today; the Indian news channels are turning out to be deprecated versions of sleaze content.

It’s strange where competition can lead to. You name any channel; Star, Zee, Aaj Tak or whatever. Everyone wants higher TRP ratings. But in this mad rush, the honest intent of providing news is lost somewhere. Agreed they justify that they are showing what is happening all over today, but is this really the way of presenting it. There are rapes, murders, dacoities, kidnappings happening all over India, blame it on the morbid system or the kindness of politicians. Add some more masala to it, and present it to the junta. This is the mantra of these channels now.

There are one hour programmes like “Jurm”, “Sansani” etcetera coming up on different channels showing how the crime was committed, how did it all happen and all that crap and bull$%*#. Is this is what news meant to be? Will this in any way stop these crimes from happening or will this give way to produce more criminals. God knows. Moreover these programmes are shown at prime time, when probably most of the families watch television together. Can’t be more embarrassing while watching with them. Thankfully, I have been lucky so far.

Minutes after the Tsunami came and wreaked havoc, a journalist on some news show asked a man with the corpse of his daughter besides him “How are you feeling today ?”. Didn’t that insane moron know what had happened? Is this the question to ask someone when a tragedy had bequeathed him? And then he says “Bhagwaan aapka bhala karre”. Pathetic. This is what they call news.

Switch on to some other channel and there are cheap music videos with half naked women flaunting their flesh, who don’t know an iota of dancing. All they need to do is move around making lewd and libidinous movements, show off their butts and get paid later. And this sells. And we watch it for our gratification.

The Indian media is lost. Sounds rhetoric but true.