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THE headline grabber of the early week was no doubt the Budget, the coverage of which by the weekend had turned into some kind of a media circus. Over the years, the annual ritual of covering the Budget has lost its lustre, though this year there were some compelling interviews combined with moments of light relief. But mostly the approach to the coverage was linear, laden with clichés, which required a certain level of dedication and patience from the average viewer. Later, after the Budget speech, interviews were aired on various news channels with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who must have been positively wilting by late evening. Of the lot, Raghav Behl’s on CNBC and Prannoy Roy and TN Ninan’s t`EAte-`E0-t`EAte on NDTV topped the charts. In both there was a sense of easy amiability combined with experience. Ninan even humorously quizzed the minister of the need for his ministry to give micro details on lower excise on toy balloons. Why toy balloons, for heaven’s sake? But the light touches of comedy did little to hide the hard truth that the Budget was going to fuel a certain amount of inflation.
But now Headlines Today has also assumed that persona. The report by the channel on the Indian Air Force’s war game at Pokhran on Sunday sounded like a war cry. The war games, Vayu Shakti, perhaps had been strategically positioned after the Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two countries, but if you heard Headlines Today, you would have been convinced that that the mock drill was actually an attempt to pound "the enemy." If you are not a diehard SRK fan, the kind of exposure the star is getting on TV post My Name is Khan could be causing some viewers indigestion. But if you are completely besotted by the star, then, of course, you will be watching Travel and Living’s Living with the Star, which is a 10-episode serial on Shah Rukh. As biopics go, it is not insightful as much as hugely indulgent. The episode I saw had SRK and family in London. The star’s mama had told him that she very much wanted him to see Madame Tussad’s in London, and so here we are with SRK at the world famous wax museum, and in Hyde Park, and in all of the city’s well known joints. Though we did see a lot of his kids, his wife Gauri was slinking about in dark glasses, evidently not wanting to be part of this TV tamasha. Never mind, we still saw SRK teaching his daughter to cycle, and his son to play better football (he cheats, says his not to proud papa), and listen to groovy street musicians. SRK’s life is full of beautiful people and beautiful moments, which don’t really fuse well with a sophisticated profile of a personality whose popularity has, I readily admit, touched many people across the globe. We are entering the last leg of Rahul Dulhaniya Lejayega on NDTV. The final three have been chosen — Dimpy, Nikunj and Harpreet. The finals are on March 6, and the brides, in a fit of giggles, are in the process of deciding their dresses while talking to various designers. It will be interesting to see whether this swayamvar actually pans out to a real marriage, or will it be a faux event as Rakhi ka Swayamvar was. |
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By Sunday the Budget blues
had been overtaken by the mother of all battles, the hockey face-off
between India and Pakistan. Cricket, move over, there is a new game in
town, and it is called hockey. The World Cup is being played in Delhi,
but unfortunately it only gets a high decible profile when the Indian
team beats Pakistan. I wonder what the aftermath would have been if the
result had been reversed. Chak de hockey, screamed CNN-IBN, and
that should have summed up the spirit behind the game in general but,
sadly, the reportage and popular reaction assumed different overtones as
India clinched a 4-1 victory. The ‘war’ metaphor was more than
apparent in the match. Whether it is Pakistan or China, the channel was
growling and gnashing its teeth.