PUNJABI ANTENNA
Cherubic charms
by Randeep Wadehra

Dixit and Divya with a guest (centre) EYE CATCHER Belonging to the Kirana Gharana School of classical music, Shankar Sahney is a popular Punjabi folk singer. Trained by his father, Prof Tej Bahadur Sahney, Shankar has been performing on AIR and Doordarshan ever since he was five years old. Although as a guitarist and singer he has featured in more than 500 albums, he has cut ten albums of his own. Of these, Kede Yaar Nu is the most famous and Oh Tera Kya Kehna is the latest.

Divya and Dixit, kid anchors on ETC’s Kakka Nikki Time, lend a refreshingly cherubic charm to the small screen. The scriptwriters appear to have realised that children should be talking of the stuff that is more relevant to their world – interspersed with such info like why only female mosquitoes bite, or how nail-biting could be a health hazard. Their interaction with guests – both children and adults – too is short, sweet and targeted at a young audience. Most of the songs too appear to have been chosen keeping the viewers in mind.

Grace has gone out of fashion, vulgarity is in vogue. This was the refrain on MH1 when the I Want team asked people their opinion on the state of Hindi movies. Not just old timers, but some comparatively young people too harked back to the days when on-screen romance had an ethereal charm and heroine an alluring enigma. Now "in-your-face" attitude appears to have triggered off a trend towards gutter-level double entendre and crude clothes that have conservative and family viewers, observed a young couple. While, one tends to agree with most of the remarks, one mustn’t forget that some good movies too are being made. Bollywood is churning – both nectar and toxins are being thrown up, and it is up to the movie buffs to choose between the two.

Similar was the refrain on Alpha Punjabi’s Parat Dar Parat, although the target was music video industry. Old melody has been replaced with hybrid cacophony in the name of fusion or crossover music, lamented lovers of classical music. Another aspect that the programme focused on was piracy and infringement of copyrights. But when we watch phone-in programs like Dial-E-Punjab or Mubarakan the audience preference for techno, remix and fusion music becomes quite clear.

However, Rangla Punjab, telecast live on Alpha Punjabi and ETC Punjabi on 24 October, was an audio-visual treat. Songs, interspersed with the compere Gurpreet Ghuggi’s humorous asides, sent heartbeats throbbing and feet tapping.