Truth, stranger than fiction: Indiantelevision dot com's Box Populi by Subhash K Jha

Truth is often stranger than fiction. Hannah's father pleading for justice and Amitabh Bachchan doing the same at a film's mahurat looked like interchangeable dramas designed for effect.

Like most of what we see on television, the report on the apprehension of Hannah Foster’s alleged rapist and killer turned into a strange and tragic soap opera. While the way the electronic medium, particularly Star News, co-operated with the poor bereaved British parents of the slain girl, was exemplary, the story subsequently lost its shine due to overkill.

That’s the problem with Indian television. It never knows when kill goes into overkill. On Thursday night, Star News acquired a deliberately selfcongratulatory tone reminding us repeatedly that they helped get the culprit…

And why would that be cause for some heavy back-thumping? Crime on television has become an area of great curiosity rather than concern. Programmes like Crime Petrol (Sony) and Crime Watch (NDTV) tend to provide audiences with voyeuristic pleasure rather than a measure of the danger that has crept into daily life.

Some smart lines: Interestingly, the widely covered ‘mahurat’ fame AB corp ltd Viruddh is also about an aging couple’s battle for justice for their slain child. Star News excitedly informed us that "the Big B and Mahesh Manjrekar are together again after Kaante."

In what capacity, we don’t know. In Kaante, the two were co-stars whereas in Viruddh they are actor-director. NDTV India went many steps further when on Thursday night, in their late-night social-events coverage, where an excited correspondent cornered Bachchan and his close friend Amar Singh together at the Viruddh mahurat.

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Now, you don’t let an opportunity like that go by. The correspondent continued to corner the distinguished combo for quite a while, even at the risk of tripping over in excitement. "Man is known by the company he keeps. He’s my family, not a company," punned the clever politician. The correspondent completely missed the pun.

She asked Amar Singh how he enjoyed his favourite actor’s films. "Oh I don’t watch them at special shows. I watch them with the 'aam junta'," the politician exulted, prompting the perky correspondent to ask Bachchan why he doesn’t arrange special shows for his special friend.

She obviously missed the point, like most correspondents, new to the art of extracting the elixir of tele-titillation from celebs.

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Smooth Talk: The roles were reversed on Barkha Dutta's show on 24X7, where she got the enormously media-spangled Neha Dhupia to talk about her new film Julie.

This tete-a-tete was different from the other skin-spiel. Dutta asked really hardhitting questions on the stripping-to-success formula. "How much skin do you show?" Dutta wanted to know with a grin. "Do you mind being called another Mallika Sherawat?" grinned Dutta again, and admitted that she was trying to rile her guest.

How low can you go?

"And you succeeded," the Julie actress retorted. Dhupia explained how she spelled out the amount of skin-display on contract, and gave no more no less. It’s amazing how matter-of-fact our leading ladies sound about matters of dis-dress. More than, "The role demands it" it’s now, "The boxoffice demands it." Dhupia ended her pragamatic take on the peep-trend with a compliment for her interviewer, "You’re a great inspiration for us."

Now that’s what I can killing two 'bods'with in one tone. Not only did Dhupia let us know that she bonded as a female professional with Ms Dutta, she also won a toothy grin from the anchor.

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Read between the lines: Often times, you just have to read between the lines to decipher the true meaning of a television interview. When on NDTV India’s Humlog a politician tried to impute female foeticide on one community, the entire congregation specially the vociferous Jayanthi Natarajan of the Congress-I and social activist Brinda Karat pounced on him. That level of outrage comes from a society that’s newly learnt about its rights and wants to assert itself through a media where pose and poise go hand in hand with self-assertion and personality projection.

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Some more heart aches for 'choti bahu'

Reviving some old emotions: Chalk up some much-needed points for Sahara’s soap Sahib Bibi Ghulam, where Raveena Tandon playing the neglected Bahu of a feudal household got a bit of long-due attention from her husband who was too sick to go to the kotha (no not AIDS, just aches!). The wife’s face glowed like a Christmas tree. It was as though she had just been provided with a return-ticket to the moon.

Raveena Tandon is very good at expressing the ecstacy of a woman in love, a woman who would go to any lengths to win her man. Roopa Ganguly who plays her sister-in-law also brings in a bitter-sweetness to the tale of aching desolation in a haveli where men have nothing to lose except their lumbering libidos.

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Interviewers delight: Hrithik Roshan’s interviews are like his performances: meticulous, worked out in every detail and meant to project him not so much as the person he is but the person he would like to be.

On BBC’s Face To Face, Karan Thapar asked him some probing questions about his childhood and how he ended up doing his maternal grandfather’s film by mistake. This was a re-telecast. We therefore we didn’t get to hear much about Hrithik’s last two films

There’s an inbuilt danger in telecasting old interviews. Some of the people, who speak end up looking stupid in hindsight. In Sony’s Boogie Woogie on Wednesday, the host made a statement about Abhishek Bachchan and Karisma Kapoor getting married at the Taj Mahal.

Mustachioed delight

Very ironical, considering the way the relationship finally went. Aamir Khan was interviewed on NDTV India’s Mumbai Central at the screening of his documentary on Lagaan. As Aamir spoke in his new get-up for The Rising, fans could be heard nearly breaking down the door behind which the interview was taking place.

One benefit of being an exclusive star is, you always get to look extra-special on television. From the twirl of the regal moustache to the clamour at the door… Aamir looked and behaved like a Star. Wow, take a bow.