PUNJABI ANTENNA
No touch of class
Randeep Wadehra

There is a metallic quality in Sarabjit’s voice that heightens the effect of his renderings.

WITH over a dozen albums and about 30 hit songs to his credit, Sarabjit Cheema has been making his presence felt on the Punjabi music scene for quite some time now. There is a metallic quality in his voice that heightens the effect of his renderings. It suits folk songs. This becomes evident while listening to his latest Only Folk—an album that contains eight different types of folk songs sung in different parts of the undivided Punjab — Majha, Doaba and Malwa. The traditional vigour of this region’s folk music becomes evocative in the singer’s latest collection. The metaphors and images drawn from the Punjabi village life of a bygone era will turn old-timers nostalgic while the fast tempo will set the youths’ feet tapping. Carry on Sarabjit.

DD Jalandhar’s magazine, Sajhri Saver, comes every morning with a variety of programs. For example, Kanooni Nukte provides legal advice to callers. However, the panelists often give vague/general directions rather than address the specific problem presented to them. Generally the caller is given only one chance to present his case and is then cut off. He isn’t allowed to stay online and seek clarifications on the advice given. Then there’s Sunehe, which consists of messages from callers to their friends and kin and, occasionally, suggestions on the quality of various programs. What’s striking is that there’s a plethora of platitudes and touching earnestness in the proceedings; one hardly gets to hear anything of substance.

Even in this day and age DD Punjabi has managed to stagnate in terms of technological inputs, ideas, creativity and treatment of a given topic. Let us take two recent examples. There was a program on Mahavira, which displayed a calendar-art illustration of Jainism’s founder and 24th Tirthankara. The accompanying narrative could well have belonged to a class V textbook. Perhaps the occasions could have been better used for a meaningful discussion on the pros and cons of Mahavira’s teachings, and his relevance to the contemporary social scenario. Let’s treat him more as a historical reality rather than a mythological fantasy.

In the second example, a juvenile attempt to mythicise a politico becomes apparent when the talk show on Giani Zail Singh turns too eulogistic to be stimulating. Instead of telling us what a great guy he was, the panelists could have devoted the airtime to evaluating the Giani’s contributions to Punjab’s economic development, his role vis-`E0-vis terrorism in Punjab and performance as India’s president.

On May 3 morning DD Punjabi showed recorded telecast of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Gold Cup women’s hockey finals. The sole commentator didn’t worry too much about clearly pronouncing his own and the respective teams’ names. No credits, scores etc displayed on the screen. After exactly seven minutes of concentrated listening one could decode the teams’ names as Sports Wing Kairon XI and RCF Kapurthala. Till the end one remained in the dark about the date on which this match was held. Perhaps the dawn of professionalism still eludes the region’s premier television channel.

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