SIGHT & SOUND
How much India matters
Amita Malik

I was once in New York when the then Indian Prime Minister was visiting Washington on an official visit. I anxiously scanned the American newspapers and electronic media for some news of the visit.

There was not a cheep in the media. NBC, ABC and even the PBS, which is a public service channel, made no reference to the visit. When I scanned the Indian papers soon after, much had been made of the PM’s interviews on TV in the US. Actually these were on ethnic channels, which are run by NRIs and have a viewership limited to NRIs.

Watching the opening day of the PM’s visit to Washington last week, things had not changed very much. There was no dearth of Indian correspondents in Washington, and they made loud noises, especially Barkha Dutt, whose self-importance increases by the hour. She out talks everyone — to the extent that she abruptly interrupted a former ambassador to India so anxious was she to continue with her list of questions. She addressed a CEO familiarly by his first name during an interview. Even if she knows him personally, this was a formal occasion and that was not the correct form of address.

Then, when it came to the crunch, in spite of all those preliminary noises, the Indian electronics media did not carry the ceremonial welcome at the White House live. We had to be fobbed off with descriptions by Indian correspondents, which was simply not good enough. Were Indian correspondents not allowed inside to cover the ceremony? Whenever there’s a visit by Putin, Blair or even Musharraf, we see their ceremonial receptions and speeches. Whether they are done live or recordings are shown immediately after, I am not in a position to say. But at least part of the PM’s response to the welcome speech by President Bush was shown live by CNBC, Headlines Today and Aaj Tak. NDTV missed it and stuck to the names of the Indian cricket team for Sri Lanka and the usual Advani crisis stories. The only redeeming factor was the dignity and elegance with which the Prime Minister and his wife Gursharan Kaur conducted themselves. A long time since a PM’s wife was seen at the White House and about time. Oh yes, in spite of advance announcements, the BBC and CNN did not do much better, in their general news.

However, as the tour progressed, matters improved and news bulletins caught up with the proceedings that viewers want to see rather than have them described by reporters. By virtue of her being based in the USA, Maya Mirchandani has improved tremendously in her analyses as well as interviews and was the better part of NDTV.

Cricket cackle

As I watched the match in Bangalore between Dravid’s 11 and Sehwag’s 11, I got a taste of DD’s coverage. Within minutes of a very hazy beginning, the screen went blank. Frantic calls to the cable operator. Then the commentary team was B class, as usual. Charu Sharma prefaced every sentence at the presentation with, "of course". He almost called Dravid and Sehwag of course. Then the Hindi commentators got all excited and shouted their heads off.

The BBC has a dictionary for broadcasters, which is one of my prized possessions. I suggest DD brings out a dictionary of how not to pronounce words. To take one example, bowlers. The Hindi commentators pronounced it as "ballers", and the English commentators as bowlers (as in take a bow). Innings has now become ‘inning’ (without the ‘s’) for the first innings and innings for the second. How do these errors slip through. Luckily we were spared the noddle straps and comments on cricket by female baits this time.