Bollywood & bloomers

Our news channels are quite capable of bloomers; some English news anchors cannot even pronounce Indian names correctly

Even as tributes were being paid to the late Kavi Pradeep (Rangoli, DD) and Sanjeev Kumar (various news channels) filmstars Dara Singh and Shatrughan Sinha were reportedly hospitalised. And, India TV discovered "mystery" behind Rajesh Khanna’s recent hospitalisation although his friends, family and the hospital authorities denied the same. Clearly, they wanted to respect the celebrity patient’s privacy. But, such niceties don’t deter the scoop chasing news channels.

India TV aired a full-fledged "report", brazenly insinuating that there was much more to the original superstar’s illness than was being revealed. Aaj Tak helpfully alluded to Khanna’s drinking problem, yawn! Another yawning moment was CNN-IBN’s sting on black money in Bollywood.

The recently launched Madhubala (Colors), which literally started off with a bang, has Bollywood for its canvas. Zamindar Balraj Chaudhry desperately wants a male heir but his wife dies during childbirth after giving birth to a daughter, Trishna. He vents frustration by placing an apple on the child’s head and fires at it with his gun. When Chaudhry’s second wife, Padmini, becomes pregnant, he threatens her with death if she delivers a daughter. With dai ma’s help Padmini, along with Trishna, escapes to Mumbai where Madhubala is born to her in a film studio. After growing up, Madhubala takes on film star Rishabh Kundra after she witnesses an accident`85 The plot is promising but, given the craving for easy popularity, it can easily get derailed just to cater to the adolescent audiences’ liking for "romantic" scenes.

We have seen that happening to many a promising serial. For example, popular serial Geet (Star One, now defunct) had started off strongly as a vehicle of protest against patriarchal excesses but soon deteriorated into a series of mushy encounters between Maan Singh Khurana and Geet. Every other minute, she would topple off stools, stairs, and what not, with Maan magically preventing her fall; then the two would stare idiotically into each other’s eyes; actually, such tattered gimmicks have become stock-in-trade of most of the Hindi soaps for attracting juvenile audiences.

Madhubala, too, began with a similar context of patriarchal excesses but already the digression towards stereotypical romance is manifesting itself. Moreover, certain carelessness is creeping in too. For example, while alluding to a trapeze artist’s tightrope walk Mukund’s mother describes it as a kartoot when it should have been kartab; clearly, a case for a refresher course in Hindi/Urdu for the dialogue writer.

But such bloomers are not limited to soaps. Our news channels, too, are quite capable of it; some English news anchors cannot even pronounce Indian names correctly. Admittedly, reading "recuse (decline to attend)" as "rescue" could be attributed to the teleprompter’s vagaries but it is unforgiveable when Hindi channels use the word "khilafat" rather than "mukhaalfat" or "virodh" for the act of opposing. Khilafat was a pan-Islamic movement launched by Indian Muslims during 1919-24 in order to champion the cause of Caliphate in Turkey, which was imperiled by the post-First World War developments. It had failed eventually. Refresher courses in language and history for Hindi TV journalists, perhaps?

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