SIGHT & SOUND
Be a sport, ladies
Amita Malik

Sport has become, and has been for some time, one of the great entertainers on radio and TV. Everything, from fierce patriotism to unalloyed joy in the beauty of the sport, stirs the listener or viewer. And much can depend on the way that sport is put across. Those who have watched the professional sports channels like ESPN, Star Sports, Ten Sports and then seen Doordarshan — with its obsession with ads over sport and its Grade B commentators — will know what I mean.

One of the comparatively new aspects of sports coverage is the rising number of women anchors for sport with good background knowledge. This makes one treat them with respect. So if I devote this column to the way women cover sports, it is because sports is quite literally a serious business as well as a delightful form of entertainment. And, except for a few exotic ones, most women anchors can enthuse listeners and viewers at all levels.

To illustrate my views on where things go right and where they go wrong, I am going to restrict my self to three women anchors on NDTV 24/7, as they are typical cases for proving my thesis. And, it is the best team. Although some of the Hindi channels have competent anchors, most of them have a tendency to go too fast and put in too many frills.

Sonali Chander is in a class by herself. She has authority, charm, a sense of humour and can even keep runaway horses like “Sherry” Sidhu under control. She has no rivals and I always find it a pleasure to watch and hear her on the screen. Another of her several virtues is that she doesn’t lose her cool and, in spite of all that authority, is never pushy and avoids trying to hog the show. Shabaash Sonali. We look forward to your programmes with pleasure and anticipation.

The baby of the team is Priyanjana Datta. She is cheerful and young and clearly enjoys sport. She puts whatever experience she has to the best possible use and never over-reaches herself or tries gimmicks in an effort to impress. She stays relaxed and is content to be herself, which is good enough.

And now we come to Gaurika Chopra, who, in spite of her obvious knowledge of sport, ruins it all by taking both sport and, worse, herself too seriously. I have been trying for months to see Gaurika smile and have failed. She is never relaxed and looks so firm that she seems to be there to batter the viewers rather than let them enjoy that wonderful thing called sport. Gaurika does not speak her lines naturally, she shouts all the time, shakes her head, makes faces and one sometimes feels she is like a town crier announcing a water shortage. She stresses almost every second word, and usually the wrong one. In fact, so unpleasant does Gaurika make the whole exercise that when she ends by saying as grimly as usual: “See you tomorrow,” I feel like saying: “No please don’t come back tomorrow, you will spoil my whole evening again.” I repeat, Gaurika takes herself too seriously. She should get hold of some of her tapes and watch the unpleasant, unsmiling spectacle she makes of herself. Hopefully, she will know what I am trying to put across and will stop snarling and baring her teeth and opening and closing her mouth with such vigour. And, smile instead.

As for DD and other channels that are trying to make sport sexy by having silly women on programmes like Fourth Umpire, one would like to remind them that there are very attractive women who play tennis, hockey and now cricket. We are quite happy with them and can do without noodle straps and other voyeur baits which rob sport of its innate charm and visual and other attractions.