SIGHT & SOUND
Those chilling thrillers
Amita Malik

I must confess I was rather surprised when I read somewhere that the most popular Hindi serial was CID, surpassing even the saas-bahu sagas. But I was glad because I think in some ways it is one of the most professional serials on the small screen. I was perhaps not surprised, but was dismayed when I also read somewhere that out of the news programmes, the daily segment on crime rated very high with viewers, which is perhaps why it comes on every channel at prime time.

I am disturbed because some of the crimes, shown in such detail, can be emulated by young people in the same way as a recent bank robbery is supposed to have been inspired by a Hindi novel. I also find it silly that some of the anchors try to look as fierce as the criminals they describe, with fierce beards, rolling eyes and a bullying manner of speaking.

Coming back to good crime thrillers, one of the crime serials I enjoyed most in earlier days was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Not only because I pride myself on the fact that the first TV interview I ever did was with Alfred Hitchcock himself, but also because he introduced his series on TV with that droll humour which I found so enchanting when I interviewed him. I had carefully rehearsed my opening sentence before the mirror and began in a nervous, highly theatrical voice: "Oh, Mr Hitchcock, with you in the studio I hope there won’t be a corpse under the sofa." "Well, I am a pretty big body myself," he replied, with a completely straight face.

The reason I rate our own CID so highly is because it is professional in every sphere. The detective team is a fine body of actors, never going over the top with false dramatics. There are touches of scientific gadgetry, as in the Earle Stanley Gardner classics, where there is always an introduction paying a tribute to some real specialist in investigation and the technical aspects, such as camera and sound are impeccable. I always watch CID with interest and pleasure. I watched a would-be rival, Detective Omkar Nath, on another channel for a few episodes, but found that the acting was poor and the tempo frequently flagging. I was also a little suspicious of the last episode I saw, about a kidnapped child. It had strong echoes of a foreign detective story I had read some years ago — it must have been a Hercule Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes or something like that. No, I will stick to CID for now, until something equally good comes up.

All our channels have naturally gone hammer and tongs at the football World Cup and most of them have sensibly chosen their experts, most of whom are famous ex-footballers. Baichung Bhutia did much better as a commentator during the last World Cup but seemed a little less articulate this time. People such as him need good producers to bring out the best in them. I am afraid the generalists, some experienced, did not do so well. The trouble with some commentators is that they do not specialise but try to do many sports.

Charu Goswami, who did moderately well over tennis from Kolkata, I find a terrible bore on cricket. And Harsha Bhogale is so good at cricket, but I find him not half as good on football. Incidentally, I wonder how many people know that Harsha started his career in All India Radio. But there is a saying that all the best reporters on NDTV, for instance, came from Doordarshan. There is an obvious moral in this. The private sector always pays and treats you better than sarkari naukri.