SIGHT & SOUND
Star-crossed claims
Amita Malik

FROM time to time, various channels arrange get-togethers with the Press to tell them about their achievements and give a preview of future programmes, which they always describe as unique. They do face some bouncers from the Press, but both the Press and the channels seem to enjoy the encounters, which are all part of the game.

Last week it was the turn of the Star channels. And since most channels believe in quantity rather than quality (which means statistics), we had a formidable line-up of them. In the general entertainment category, Star Plus claims a 24 per cent viewership as against Sony’s 6 per cent and Zee’s 4 per cent. Star also claims to be India’s No. 1 network with a relative prime-time share of 63 per cent in the Hindi-speaking markets. And these relative statistics abound throughout. Oh, Titanic in Hindi on Valentine’s Day was a smash hit.

It is when we came to actual programmes that the Press sat up. The highlight in the way of serials, announced as starting on March 7, is Koie Jane Na. It was described as "thrills and chills, supernatural horror which has been a good book (sic) for dramas". Aiming to be "Bollywood’s biggest blockbuster," it was also described as a "dramedy". And, of course, it is also a fight between Good and Evil. But the real surprise is that there is this young bahu who is an orphan and "carries within herself a bright spark of divinity`85 and takes stock of the eerie happenings in the house and gets to tackle them." The other bahu, Nisha, is "the ideal family bahu." Well, you have to watch the serial to get all the multiple nuances sorted out and we wish you luck. What is missing is the plethora of mothers-in-law in such serials. Whatever happened to them?

The second big item is a talent hunt for a superstar, male and female, who, after a nation-wide search with selectors, including Shyam Benegal, will be given three to four months training in Mumbai, to be followed by proper long-term contracts. The film is to be directed as a blockbuster by a "dream director" (Hema Malini, watch out). So Star launches itself on to the big screen with a bang. The third big project is another talent hunt, this time for a genius, or geniuses, to be described as "The smartest Kid in India". The genius will be discovered by Siddhartha Basu with what else but a quiz programme. Based on the US programme America’s Child, it will be open to children between the ages of 10 and 12. Already 17,000 applications have been received and 500 telephone interviews conducted. The programme will have high-level quizzes for the 300 who come through. Scholarships worth more than Rs 50 lakh will be given and since the programme will go out on Star World, including links with Hong Kong, it will be in English. Enough to begin with, so let us leave it at that.

The difference between Doordarshan, even in its new shining avatar, and the private channels came out sharply when yet another interview with Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who possibly enjoys more primetime on TV than the PM, was aired on an independent channel. Vir Sanghvi was the interviewer and it made all the difference. Sanghvi asked more or less the same questions as Rajiv Mehrotra on DD. But where Mehrotra had been obsequious and flattering, Sanghvi was polite but hard-hitting. The minister was mostly on the defensive and Sanghvi did not hesitate to point this out when needed. In fact, our print editors who now seem to spend more time anchoring stuff on TV, have the authority and the confidence to take on politicians head-on and make conventional anchors look as pathetic as they are.

Radhika Bordia has been doing a thorough job in her programme 24 hours, which is informative as well as entertaining. She surpassed herself in the virtual documentary on Mumbai’s taxi drivers. Not a nuance was left out: Maharashtrians vs outsiders; the few women taxi drivers; the way unions function; the way the police bully them and extract bribes; children going to good schools even if the family is huddled together in one small room, so that they do not end up as taxi drivers. It was a social document. The unobtrusive way in which Radhika asked questions, drew out the innermost thoughts and the most niggling problems of the taxi drivers in Mumbai. I often wonder if the government and other departments which deal with such sections of society, or political parties such as the Shiv Sena, very much in evidence in this programme, ever get to see such programmes. It might make them not only think, but also take action that is more in touch with reality. They might also realise how they unnecessarily harass and create problems for professional people who are trying to make an honest living under the most daunting conditions.