Satyam Shivum Boredom - Indiantelevision dot com's Box Populi by Subhash K Jha

Rape is a grave crime. We see so much of it on the news channels that we tend to become voyeuristic or worse, desensitised about the prickly issue. Not too many soaps venture into the issue of rape. Two of Ekta Kapoor’s serials Kavita (on the ill-fated DD Metro channel) and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii had tackled the issue. Now on the skittish Kittie Party on Zee, Tina whose character has gone from oppressed housewife to ambitious career woman to spurned spouse, was raped by a playboy named Ranveer while driving back from a party.

Sounds familiar? Remember the foreign tourist who was raped by a playboy in Delhi who gave her a lift? Good to see the fairly fluffy fare in this soap acquiring wings of gravity. Specially interesting is the manner in which Rewa (Kavita Kapoor) and Manju (Poonam Dhillon) react to the trauma in their friend’s life. While Rewa wants to go to town about it, Manju wants to keep it quiet. To each her own.

Name of the game is fame: Quietude is a fugitive entity on Star’s medical soap Sanjivani where the relationship between the senior doctor Mohnish Behl and his wife Irawati Harshe has attained a new hue, thanks to the doc’s ex-flame who’s now a patient in his hospital. There was an interesting flashback last week when the diffident doc brought bangles for the bubbly girl next-door and they all tumbled to the ground in a cascade of feelings.

Incidentally this is the same actress Smita Bansal who made her television debut approximately five years ago in Sony’s Challenge with Nakul Vaid. Vaid has moved on, creating a stirring impact in Ram Gopal Varma’s Ab Tak Chappan. His co-star struggles on with the random appearance on television. Sad.

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Shekhar on a roll...

Electoral brouhaha: Election specials on Indian television are acquiring epidemic proportions. While Vinod Dua is travelling to every corner of the country on NDTV India to acquaint us with the electorate, Shekhar Suman sits on his high horse in the Star News studio doing the satire on political double-speak called Poll Khol. The unsparing scathing look at what the electorate candidates are saying to get votes, goes at every one’s throat from Jaya Prada to Maneka Gandhi.

I’d much rather travel with Dua who last week got into a tram in Kolkata with Usha Uthup. The singer-performer is such a natural on camera. She sang and she told stories about Kolkata, all done in that anecdotal fashion which distinguishes the true raconteurs from the fakes.

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Diya Who?

Filmy Chakkar: Film-based talk-a-thons on television are giving the cult of gushiness a new meaning. Ruby Bhatia who does Centrestage on B4U announced the arrival of her guest last week with words so laudatory, we thought she would bring on Aishwarya Rai, if not Julia Roberts. Relax guys, it was Diya Mirza. Remember her? Ruby did! She had done lots of homework on her. And she told us all about it. Wow, some people have all the time in the world.

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Talk shows with a difference: We’d rather watch Sunil Dutt with his rich repository of remembrances on Zee’s Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai. He was there last Friday to support son Sanjay. With rare clippings from their private photographs with mom Nargis this episode of Jeena… was unarguably the most emotional I’ve ever seen.

Follow the leader!

A couple of days later on NDTV’s Follow The Leader Sreenivasan Jain followed Sunil Dutt through rallies and public gatherings… and then at the end of the day they came back to the ominously quiet Dutt residence strewn with photographic memories of happier times.

The bright correspondent asked the obvious question. "Don’t you get lonely when you return home?" Dutt saab’s benevolent eyes looked back gently. "No, usually I’m too tired to be lonely. I just go to sleep."

Seen together, Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai with Sanjay Dutt and Follow The Leader with his father typified a passing of a generation, and the value of nostalgia in giving history its proper perspective in our troubled times.

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Dreamy eyed clueless stars!

Clueless film stars: In its business report BBC did a rather enjoyable story on film stars doing ads. The story was surprisingly candid, pointing out how stars often end up endorsing products they’ve no idea about. The example of Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan speaking up for Home Trade was flashed before us. True to his image Shah Rukh Khan defended star endorsements. Saif was more cautious. He confessed he didn’t like many of his ad concepts, for example the cola ad that he did with Preity, Kareena and Fardeen.

Is that comment a contempt of the product, or just the premise behind the product? The news channels should really watch their mouth. The fledgling DD News needs to get its film-based facts in place. On Sunday they confidently announced that Karan Johar’s next directorial venture was titled Khandaan and that it starred Aamir, Salman and Shah Rukh.

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An April Fool’s joke four days too late? On NDTV’s debate Muqabla former beauty queen Nikita Anand crossed swords with activist types who wanted to know why so much attention was given to physical grooming. Though Ms Anand patiently explained it was all about brains, the brains on the show were unconvinced.

Poor Nafisa Ali! Not physically present at the studio she was given the thankless task of defending all the beauties on the ramp by a satellite link from charges of being vamps.

She bravely spoke about her own tryst with beauty contests and how they gave her the confidence to make something of her life. Unfortunately that confidence didn’t translate into holding her own via a connection where she couldn’t hear all the views properly.

I got the feeling no one was listening to Nafisa. Post the Pandit scandal it’s fashionable in teevee debates to sneer at celebrations of physical beauty.

Satyam Shivum Boredom.

(Pic courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com)