TELEVISTA
Attire reveals the anchor
AMITA MALIK

In the recent past I have been looking, initially with amusement and, more recently, with disgust beginning with dismay, at the lengths to which TV personalities, especially anchors, will go to be as different in looks, voice and dress as is possible. Perfectly nice-looking girls will go to any lengths to hide their looks under layers of make-up. They will get into tight, ill-fitting pants to look as westernised (and presumably modern) as possible. As for their voice, they speak in high-pitched, shrill voices as loud as they can, and in a manner they would certainly not in normal life. The net result is that they all look, dress and sound alike.

Barkha Dutt has transformed herself into a swan

Let us take dress first. It almost seems a sin to wear a saree, although the main anchor of Doordarshan not only looks elegant but also wears sarees in such good taste that, to mix metaphors, they wave the flag for India. Even that well-known ragamuffin, Barkha Dutt, whose ill-fitting, ill-matched and shabby clothes used to be something of a media joke and so different from her outstanding reporting, has suddenly transformed herself into a swan. With designer churidar-kurtas in lovely colours, subtle make-up, well-groomed hair and earrings to match, she looks a different person. But thankfully, her reporting remains as outstanding as ever.

Then take Rajdeep Sardesai, who used to be normally and correctly dressed. He now dons long, Tagorean robes reaching the ankles—except that Tagore wore sober hand-spuns and Sardesai sports raw silk in various hues. Somehow, one cannot be distracted from what he is saying, which is usually important. Yet the best anchors and reporters manage to be elegantly dressed without being flamboyant.

Take Sonali Chander, for instance. She wears casual, sporty, western clothes, churidars and kurtas and a rare saree with equal naturalness so that we can concentrate on what she is saying. Of the anchors, I find Suhashini Haidar charmingly dressed while Sagarika Ghosh, in spite of her constant change of style and colour in clothes, falls a little flat because it is so self-conscious and planned.

Of the men I find her colleague Vidya Shankar Aiyer elegantly dressed. Then let us get to trousers. I think the worst are the female anchors for sports who think that getting into tight pants, and anchoring while standing to show how tight they are, will add to their reporting and analyses. It has exactly the opposite effect. One woman has been wearing the same red shirt for as long as we can remember, and we earnestly hope she has several of them, otherwise this one is likely to fall off her back.

One male gossip anchor wears the same light and blue and white printed shirt day after day. Since he is not obliged to wear a costume, we feel like starting a fund to help him get different shirts to change from day to day.

As for voices, the less said the better. Every girl thinks the done thing is to speak in a shrill, fast, nasal voice, as is in the case of the terrible anchor for Headlines Today, who does the programme called Grand Stand. In addition to speaking in a squeaky unnatural voice, she throws her arms about, rolls her eyes and refuses to keep her head or torso in the same position. She ends up looking more like a funny act in a school pantomime than a serious anchor.

Even if she is doing a programme on entertainment, she need not be a bad entertainer herself. Someone should tell her that she is a pain in the neck, since her channel seems to think she is someone worth watching in those silly contortions of body and voice. The fact of the matter is that the best anchors are those who speak as they do in normal life, whether it is Rajdeep Sardesai, Vidya Shankar Aiyer, Barkha Dutt or Sonali Chander. So let us keep it that way.