Letters from India: Media finds a new low

I would never have thought that it was even possible. After the immense wave of mediocrity that swept the Indian media in the wake of the mentally retarded shenanigans which were the hallmarks of idiots like Ekta Kapoor, I would hardly ever have thought that things could go any worse from there. Believe it or not but they have. Just when you thought that in an era of mindless and cheap entertainment, mindless and cheap entertainment could not get any more mindless and cheap, they surely have. Ofcourse there are some saving graces, islands of creativity teetering on the brink of exhaustion in a sea marred with popular acceptance of sub-par creativity but all in all, its a sad story.

News channels have yet again fallen down in the quality of their contents. While the front page of Times of India routinely features atleast 50% space as advertisements and 30% of the space with news like 'Man in Jabalpur pays 10 lakhs for a special Phone number' or 'Owners of these fancy numbers once sold Chole Bhature' in bold, other papers, traditionally held in a bit of respect, have started following suite. News channels like India TV keep themselves in business by sensationalizing every bit of trivia happening in the country. Of late, the news that has hogged all the headlines has been the conviction of Sanjay Dutt in the Bombay Blasts. It seems news channels have opened up temporary offices outside the jail in which he is housed. We are being fed with every little detail of his life. What he eats, where he sleeps, the gory details of his toilets, his minimalistic attire, how he is being treated like a normal person. The last bit of useless information that made into the category of 'breaking news' was about Sanjay Dutt feeling a bit of pain in his chest. News Channels, seeing the potential of taking the viewers for a ride, immediately organized for expert panels of medical practitioners, each of them trying to predict his illness and its repercussions. Similarly, there was this case of a child of 17 being beaten to death by his class teacher. You wouldn't believe but news channels prepared elaborate animations depicting how the teacher might have beaten him. They reached his home and started pestering his moaning mother with retarded questions like 'How do you feel'. Everyone in the village from his friends to their relatives to the school janitor to the dogs and cats had their 15 minutes. Its news journalism at its most heartless.

The saas bahu genre is holding its post strong in this battle of sanity versus insanity. From what I could make of off the discussions in my family, Tulsi seems to have died (or changed). I would say, about time now. People in our world generally die off when they reach an age of 125. But Baa seems in her frolicking best. Rolling around merrily at a ripe old age of atleast 200. There are atleast 2000 characters per serial and I am guessing, atleast 5000 such serials on Star Plus alone. And each of those 5000 serials tries to dish out another concoction made out of the same old stories of revenge and betrayal and love and hate and vamps and bahus doing pooja every single day. Grandaughters have started looking older than grandmothers, women viler than your average Hannibal Lecter, audience more numb than hippies on LSD.

Every channel now has a host of reality shows. Most of these shows are concerned with young and budding singers and I must say they are a helluva talented bunch. But then these shows go ahead and try to use their brains and add emotions and reality bites and behind the scene footages to dilute an otherwise perfectly good idea. Anyways, its still better than anything else on the conventional channels. The one good thing that has happened is a dedicated channel for cricket. Now I can sit in front of the TV all day like the mindless couch potato I am.