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Hey,
let’s get fiscal! Budget blues to budget bruise, whose gotta
win and whose gotta lose… Two days after I saw the railway
minister Lalu Yadav royally lose his temper in front of an inquiring
audience on Aaj Tak ("You’re really pissed off,"
the anchor observed somewhat redundantly) the Finance Minister,
a picture of unruffled composure, announced the budget on Doordarshan.
This
is the one time of the year when all the swanky cousins of national
television just have to borrow footage from DD which has the privilege
of access into the Parliament. The others just have to follow suit.
Among
the legion of post-budged analysis and discussion I liked the way
Salman Khurshid took on Sushma Swaraj on DD News. For one, I liked
Mr Khurshid’s casually chic bush-shirted look on the occasion.
Then, Mrs Swaraj like all opposition leaders during times of government
policy proclamation acted like the archetypal spoilsport.
"Announcements
are fine. But where’s the money?" she said sounding like
the wife who has just been promised that solitaire for the umpteenth
time.
 So
who said life’s easy for those who pull our purse strings?
Karan Thapar was quick to invite the Chidambaram for a cosy gupshup
on BBC’s Face To Face on Thursday night. Of course Thapar
being Thapar he insisted on asking leading questions. "So you’re
saying?….So this means you will?…"
Mr
Chidambaram didn’t really need any prompting. But how was Karan
Thapar supposed to know that?
****
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 Watching
Farah Khan is always a pleasure. She ‘s articulate
in an uncalculated way. And when she showed up on CNBC’s
The Lounge with designer Raghu Rathore she was relaxed and
full of choreographic anecdotes. .But while Farah never
lashes out at anyone her brother Sajid Khan doesn’t
miss the opportunity to take potshots at anyone. On Monday
Sajid was caught out on NDTV India’s Mumbai Central.
Before he could even begin to have his say on movies and
mores Sajid took one clean swipe at poor Kaizad Gustad,
saying he had made the railway station at Mumbai famous.
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Hold
it! Did Mumbai’s stock exchange become famous after the bomb
blasts in 1992? And shouldn’t we be taking a more compassionate
view of the industry as a whole rather than repeatedly ridiculing
those who are down and under? Sajid also took potshots at the
film Murder saying it was a family-oriented film…
"Families ran towards the Orient after seeing it."
 Whatever
that meant. Earlier during the week I saw Sajid doing an interview
with a guy doing a terrible impersonation of Nagesh Kukunoor on
Sab TV. Now first of all Kukunoor’s Hyderabadi accent isn’t
that thick. Secondly he isn’t as vain and stuck-up as he
was being made out to be.
Why
was Kukunoor subjected to such scathing satirical treatment? Why
don’t we ever see Sajid taking potshots at the real big guns
of the film industry? How convenient to take on a virtual outsider
like Kukunoor.
On Sab TV’s Kuch Khaas Baatein Swati Chaturdevi asked
Javed Akhtar some really hard-hitting questions on the the average
Muslim’s role and place in a communalised climate like Gujarat.
When Javed named Hindu fundamentalists like Pravin Togadia (pronounced‘Parveen’
ad nauseam) who had incited violence against Muslims, Swati was
quick to point out the same about Muslim leader (Syed Shahabuddin)
Javed was quick to retort, "I don’t know if he incited
violence. If I knew I'd condemn him too."
 Akhtar
brought up the very critical question of the average Muslim lack
of "physical security" in our country.
Is
this the nation that the leaders of our nation dreamt of building?
If not, what went wrong? Some such questions haunted me as I watched
Zee News on Tuesday. It’s no longer clear or logical as to
who or what qualifies as news. But one thing is for sure. The
concept of what makes news is changing…and fast! The ladies
on Zee News were busy telling us why they like lingerie wear.
"It’s
very comfor-table," a young lady looking anything but comfortable
pouted into the camera. This was globalisation at its nadir…
women with no qualification or sophistication to be modeling anything
but desi churan, modeling imported lingerie! Then on Ye Meri
Life Hai, which ostensibly espouses Indian middle-class values,
a siren named baby doll writhed and rolled in the rain crooning
'Kabhi aar kabhi paar laga teer-e-nazar'.
Poor
Shamshad Begum! She couldn’t ever imagine that one day her
singing would pass from the lip to the hip… full blast! What
was strange was the ecstatic reaction of the two middleclass protagonists
Pooja and Mandy to the overt vulgarity of a old hit remixed to
suit the gyratory purposes.
What
happened to good old aesthetics on television? Where does Indian
television go from here? Adultery has already been done to death.
Everyone is into one form of perversion or another. It’s
good to go back to the soapy beginnings of Indian television just
a couple of years ago on Star Utsav, the new pay-free channel
which telecasts Star’s old serials.
I love going back to Tu Tu Main Main to watch the confident
comic chemistry between Reema Lagoo and Supriya Pilgaonkar. Last
week one of the episodes was about the Bahu’s husband (Mahesh
Thakur, who now plays a similar role to Sridevi in Sahara’s
Malini Iyer) being bought out by her female boss.
The
episode was obviously a takeoff on the film Judaai. But
it tickled the funnybone. So unlike today’s sitcoms which
just fill you with an ongoing exasperation.
(The
views expressed here are those of the author and indiantelevision.com
need not necessarily subscribe to the same)
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