Sight & Sound 
Performers with a presence
Amita Malik

At the time of writing, election fever has taken over from cricket fever, in between matches, that is. And this is when the Rajdeep Sardesais and Amar Singhs take centrestage, however briefly. And we have even been given a peep into the power rooms of the party bosses. Here is a sample of election fare early in the week.

First, Rajdeep Sardesai was given a guided tour of the BJP power room in Pramod Mahajan’s house and Mahajan was at his exuberant, smooth-talking, PR best. We were awestruck by the charts, the computers, the way anyone in any remote village could be reached in seconds with the press of a button. And we thought Chandrababu Naidu had it all, even if his clever media plan was struck down by the EC. With our head still buzzing from all that technical expertise, we were whizzed off to the more modest Congress power room. Here we saw a cool Jairam Ramesh, and an even more cool Salman Khursheed. Of course, one computer could store it all, said Ramesh. We had to believe him.

Meanwhile, after all the elocution lessons given by experts to poll candidates and even former Prime Minister Deva Gowda going in for designer clothes, we come down to the basic question: Who is a good TV performer, since many people believe that TV is going to play a crucial part in the first general election this century?

Speaking in professional terms, Laloo Prasad Yadav has been voted several times over as the most canny and most entertaining politician on TV. But in terms of effectiveness, leave it to two top lawyers, Arun Jaitley and Kapil Sibal to speak briefly, convincingly, to the point and in clear language. Ramesh combines a cool manner with hard facts, which is a good combination. And of the politicians in the Opposition, Sitaram Yechury, A B Bardhan make their points coolly without raising their voices too much, while Nilotpal Basu gets strident but never discourteous. Of the women, I like Renuka Choudhury’s confident and by and large smiling belligerency, Jayanti Natarajan’s dignified and courteous language even when scoring points, Brinda Karat’s ability to stick to her ground and not get shouted down while documenting what she says. Sheila Dixit is always motherly, natural and unflappable. Sonia Gandhi still has to cultivate a confident TV manner. Her best so far has been her comparatively relaxed conversation with Shekhar Gupta in Walk The Talk. Here too, it was left to the anchor to draw her out.

When it comes to the BJP women, they are usually irritating and loud TV performers. Whether it is Uma Bharati or Sushma Swaraj, there is a lot of shrillness in their voices and a fatal tendency to try and outshout the opponent and not allow him to speak. This makes them lose the sympathy of viewers. This is all the more surprising in a highly educated and politically savvy person like Sushma Swaraj. I do not exaggerate when I say that once, when I was out of the room, I thought it was Mayawati in action, with her shrill voice and sledge-hammer technique. Swaraj can do much better by being less loud and shrill and allowing her debating opponent to speak. Like many other politicians, Swaraj has failed to realise the difference between speaking to the masses in the open air and to small TV audience in the intimacy of their homes. A pity, because her political arguments are always sound and, in personal life she is a very courteous person.

Are audiences rigged in talk shows with large audiences? This question has started popping up only after the elections were announced. For instance, in one of Rajdeep Sardesai’s Big Fights, the audience was rooting so much for Pramod Mahajan that they started clapping even before Rajdeep had completed his question. The same sort of thing happened when Dileep Padgaonkar was conducting a recent edition of Question Time India on the BBC. I was assured by one anchor that it is the channel that chooses the audience and that people cannot barge in or ask to be included. But all the same, I think channels need to give a thought to balanced audiences.

Tailpiece: It was a good idea on Prannoy Roy’s part to get young students to grill Colin Powell. But I wish the questions had been less politically stereotyped and more critical about, for instance, student reactions in the USA to the Iraq war or the continuing stray attacks on Blacks by the police in his country. Well done, nevertheless.