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The need of the hour is to create a special TV channel for the elderly. The anchors will have to talk about the ailments, legal problems and
financial hassles facing the aged, writes Chaman Ahuja Loneliness and passing time are the pivotal problems of the aged. In view of the handicaps of physical immobility and financial disability that prevent old people from seeking the company of friends, what is needed is some kind of surrogate companion at home. Books have been traditionally projected as good friends but, in old age, the capacity to read fine print gets marginalised. What is more, the people who have never cultivated the reading habit cannot start it at this age.
Then, there are millions who cannot read and write, and there are those who are totally bedridden. Above all, where are the books written with old people in mind? The need of the hour, I feel, is to create a special TV channel for the aged. Yes, indeed, if there can be special channels for children, youngsters, exclusive channels for sports, music, movies, fashion, finances, news, history, education, why not a channel for the elderly who comprise one-fourth of the population? Thanks to commercial considerations, TRP-oriented and focused on young clientele, the programmes on most channels are by the young, for the young and about the young. No wonder old persons find the music too fast, too titillating and loud, the movies too romantic, full of sex and violence to suit their tastes. Also, one often hears them cribbing about health programmes being unsuitable for their frail, sagging limbs. Instead of entertaining them, the fashion features fill them with disgust. The ‘rich’ recipes for the young have no relevance for those obsessed with special diet charts—ditto for jokes, comedies, serials, hobbies, fashion, lectures and discussions. The youth may crave for the latest movies. The old ones prefer old classics, even in black and white. Likewise, instead of vigorous rocking disco music in psychedelic lights, the aged are all for more serene stuff—ghazals and classical music. The channel that I have in mind has to be exclusively for old people. It must include interactive programmes with old people sharing their views, experiences, achievements, musings, memories and so on. Surely, there shall have to be different kinds of anchors and different kinds of experts to talk about the old ones’ needs, their ailments, legal problems and financial hassles. When asked about his routine so that I might know where to trace him, a senior colleague told me decades ago: "Well, I can tell you where and when to catch any old man. In a temple in the morning, in a park gossiping with the grey-headed herd in the evening, and during the day he is in a health centre, in a bank or in a library. There is no fourth place. Of course, there is his house, too, but he is never at home. He would not like you to find him in his undergarments, snoring in a chair. Nor would his family welcome an idle fellow on a gossiping spree." A channel for the aged has to be one with a difference. For example, contrary to the usual channels that try hard to keep you glued to your seat, the proposed channel must desist from ‘over-packing’ because an old viewer simply cannot afford to become a couch potato. He might develop any number of medical problems related to bones, muscles, or the nervous system. It is too early to talk
about details pertaining to the economics of the channel. But it is
necessary to underline the need for a new orientation that should keep
it free from the manipulations necessitated by profit-motivation,
because nothing could be more self-defeating than subjecting the
channel to the bombardment of ads and the tyranny of TRPs. Ideally,
the Ministry of Social Welfare should finance it with organisational
inputs from an NGO or an autonomous corporation.
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