SIGHT & SOUND

DD: Forever faithful
Amita Malik

THERE is an old joke which goes something like this: A somewhat dumb chap is watching a fight and he is asked belligerently if he is neutral or not. "Neutral against whom?" asks the dumbo. Taking a cue from the dumb chap, Doordarshan it has always been neutral in favour of whichever party is in power. When Indira Gandhi faced bitter defeat in the elections after the Emergency, DD still had her name grandly at the top and the winner’s at the bottom. When it was covering the ceremony for the installation of a new government at Rashtrapati Bhawan, it had its camera fixed for quite a while on the outgoing PM instead of the incoming one. DD also has its own ranking list for news bulletins. The Minister for Information and Broadcasting gets much more prime time than the Prime Minister does. Of course, most new Ministers of I and B always mention discreetly when they assume office that they have given strict instructions to AIR and DD not to give them undue publicity. 

This has included I K Gujral and a host of other ministers. But not only do they get the publicity but they also vanish rapidly from prime time when they are moved to another ministry. In this matter I can only quote what Rajiv Gandhi once said to me when I asked him why he did not do something about it. "What can I do?", he asked plaintively, "I have repeatedly asked them not to show me so often, but they just don’t listen to me."

With the elections just around the corner, DD is back in form, complete with a new look and new anchors and newsreaders filched from channels which its CEO calls nasty names. Prasad’s face is always there no matter which bulletin one happens to catch. It is clearly a case of overkill. Any minor statement he makes on no matter how trivial an issue is quoted in full. His observations on the state of Bihar have been repeated ad nauseum. And the longest innings he got last week was, coincidentally, a very long conversation with Rajiv Melhotra. Melhotra is known for his close and mutually beneficial association with DD, although he started his career in the media by winning an award for a very thought-provoking feature on, if I remember right, Indian youth. I had the privilege of presiding over the jury and fondly remind Rajiv about his beginnings whenever I meet him.

However, this interview was wonderful to see. Rajiv was soft-spoken and asked the right questions, even about censorship at the Mumbai documentary festival and other recent controversies, including, of course, the India Shining campaign. But nothing was really pursued, not even Deepak Chaurasia style. In the event it turned out to be not only neutral for the minister, but such a flattering interview that Prasad stopped just short of being called a genius. He, however, did emerge as a media wizard who transformed the media in the country and had a grand vision for the future. Very creditable, considering his close acquaintance with the media amounts to months rather than years. Well, done DD, thou good and faithful servant.

I am beginning to feel a little sorry for both Shekhar Suman and Jaaved Jaafery, the last having added more A’s to his name than even Shobhaa De. Both are getting a little tiring and repetitive and are not really getting the laughs. The forte of both is imitations, but much as I admired Jaffrey’s imitation of Amitabh Bachchan on Aaj Tak, which is always superb, he made an awful hash of Karan Thapar, stooping even to the silly pun of making Karan give thappars (slaps) to his cowering interviewer. The so-called sexy female in this programme is so shrill, contrived and unsexy that whatever feeble laughs Jaffery manages to evoke, also vanish down the drain. As for Shekhar Suman, who is beginning to look as tired on the screen as his gags, I think he needs a sabbatical. Especially so when some of his shows have obviously been derived from the well-known Leno and other shows

Tail piece: I am not enjoying this, but repeated prods from discriminating NDTV fans, including media experts, have finally forced me to voice some complaints about anchors and weather forecasters which I think are legitimate. Both Jyotsna Mohan in English and Arfa in Hindi need to look at themselves on recordings. Jyotsna speaks too fast in a monotone with a deadpan expression. She read the item about VVS Laxman’s wedding, the alleged heart attack of Qader Khan in Pakistan and the Supreme Court’s observations on the IIM case in exactly the same dreary monotone. The same goes for Arfa, who seems set to break speed records as well. I also agree that weather forecaster Navodita has an annoying habit of standing in front of the map, or whatever, so that viewers cannot see the names of cities in which they are interested. I can seldom get a look at Kolkata, for instance. Watch your own videos girls, and you will agree that viewers have a point.