So there is the ever-so-popular Cyrus (‘the virus’) Broacha, fashion icon Malaika Arora, the girl-next-door Shehnaz Treasurywalla, the charming party animal Nikhil Chinappa, the bubbly dancer Maria, an irreverent Raageshwari, the elegant Miss India Nafisa Ali, a quirky Cyrus Sahukar, the intelligent film buff, Mini Mathur... Their counterparts on Channel V are Sushma Reddy, who anchors a personality-based talk show, Ranvir the non-stop talker, Gaurav, an icon for every college kid, Yudi, the cool dude and Kim, who fulfills the so-called babe quotient.

They represent a generational leap from the times a Javed Jaffri mouthed mindless dialogues from Hindi film."These days vibrancy, verve, velocity and vividness characterise the veejays," says Devika Sharma of Channel V. "I feel veejays are born, not created. They need to have an individualistic sense of style and be passionate about music. They are camera-friendly and appear relaxed."

Significantly, both MTV and Channel V make a pretence of not taking themselves seriously, but in truth, are conscious of their role in shaping impressionable minds. Very subtly, and often, almost casually, serious social message on AIDS, rehabilitation of street children and anti-smoking, are aired.

"As a channel that connects with the young, we are very conscious of the role we play for our audience," explains Sharma. "The audience is often in the formative stages of their lives, a phase when their own individuality is emerging. Often, they emotionally connect with us and depend on us for a fresh perspective on life."

"The veejays are not just beautiful dolls who glamorise the environment, but young people who are interesting, funny, intelligent and also, who care about issues that affect young people," informs Malhotra, while speaking of MTV’s Rock the Vote programme on electoral politics.The channel also takes pride in working with the U.S. Embassy for the Global Youth Forum. Its president, Bill Roedy is the world ambassador to UNAIDS and last year, Cyrus Broacha was the channel representative at the UNAIDS Youth Forum in Germany.Likewise, Channel V has been liberally peppering its shows with special promos on environment-related issues. "It helps that our veejays do not talk down to the young or get preachy," says Sharma. "We believe deliver them in an accessible manner." Clearly there’s more to being a veejay than a talking head and a lot of hot air! MF