SIGHT & SOUND
Not programmed for youth
Amita Malik

YEARS ago, in the 1970s, before TV ousted radio, the All India Radio had a spirited programme for youth, Yuva Vani. It was truly the voice of the youth and built up virtually from scratch by an equally spirited producer, Rita Mukherji. It collected the cream of the youth from colleges and universities and encouraged them to think. Among the students discovered by Rita were Amitav Ghosh, Ramu Damodaran, Arun Jaitley, Siddharta Basu, Sunil Sethi, Rini Khanna, Komal G B Singh, Rajiv Mehrotra, Shashi Tharoor, Sunit Tandon and Pinky Anand. I need hardly list their achievements, particularly in the media.

Rita encouraged them to be fearless. I still remember a fuming Dom Moraes, then at the height of his fame, being challenged by Sunil Sethi and a young girl about his threat to renounce Indian citizenship. I keep on asking, with Yuva Vani hardly discussed nowadays, what is TV, in particular, doing about encouraging such programmes, and giving youth its voice?

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While people working in TV as reporters can chase such ideas, young people too should be brought in from outside to question the establishment as individuals or groups. There are certainly some channels for youth like MTV and V. But it is no secret that they are almost totally entertainment based and rarely have question-and-answer sessions of the more serious type. We certainly have young sportspersons on the screen, but now a gag has been put on young cricketers. So while coach Greg Chappell can shoot his mouth off and praise his favourites, the cricketers are banned from addressing the media.

Which is why one gets heartened when Sania Mirza gets a voice, even if it lands her in controversies through no fault of her own. She even had a whole hour, facing a young audience, in NDTV’s India Speaks, with Prannoy Roy. It was also very enterprising for NDTV to arrange a truly delightful programme, ably anchored by Sucharita Ghosh in London, where she had a long session with the cast and crew of the latest Harry Potter film on the day of its release and certainly conveyed the magic of Harry Potter.

But such in-depth programmes on specific subjects are still few and far between. Yet there is a vast body of young listeners and viewers in India and they refuse to be fobbed off with educational programmes at 6 am and with large doses of film stars. They are highly intelligent, as the success of Spic Macay has proved. Surely some channel will have the social sense to do something more positive for the thinking youth. Even the university channels are taking time to bring in attractive fare for the youth, although the FM channels have certainly enlivened the radio. But much more remains to be done.

Even as the latest media hysteria, rat race at its worst, was expended on Abu Salem and his two wives (or is it one), we watched in wonder. His first wife was shown driving a car in the USA and speaking to Star TV’s reporter about what a bad husband he was. Boo to the CIA and the CBI, the interviewer said that the venue was a secret. Every channel claimed its exclusive and breaking news as we sat back in awe. It will, alas, continue for some time before its reaches its climax.

One turned almost with relief to a long documentary on Indira Gandhi by Aaj Tak. It was well done and narrated and even had an interview with Varun Gandhi, who was convincing when he spoke on a personal plane but sounded terrible when he mouthed political cliches. Zee also did a good programme on Indira Gandhi. Both avoided hagiography.

I would like to suggest that DD does away with the boring Fourth Umpire, a cricket programme incredibly sponsored by Fair and Lovely although, mercifully, the fair and lovely noodle straps has quit. Charu Goswami is more than boring and to have four experts saying the same things and making the same analyses about the two teams, the pitch, the toss, and all from a studio thousands of miles away from the actual match, is more than one can take. Half an hour before play, half an hour between innings and half an hour after the match ends, eating into the victory celebrations, is more than one can bear. Let the commentators on the spot do the preview, and the analysis between overs instead of being cut short by interminable ads. Fourth Umpire is totally redundant and a waste of the taxpayer’s money.