‘Holier than thou’ media

A post I had written as a response to an argument with some journo friends…

Soumya’s death was brutal, and yes, the law and order situation in Delhi is out of control, ironically for women since the mayor of the city and the CM of the state are women themselves! But the debate above has thrown open larger issues.

I think we should not be complacent about our professions or work hours, for that matter; even courage is a relative term. Journalists are present at the right place at the right time and that is not courage. It is not about seeing a riot, shooting it live, and calling it courage. Or reporting from Iraq and thinking that is courage to be there and reporting live. Courage is different. Courage is admitting that the media did go overboard with the Arushi murder case, and I appreciate them for issuing a public apology. Courage, is also giving priority to deaths by malnutrition in news coverage over Sachin Tendulkar’s injured knee, knowing that the sponsors would be reduced, but knowing that the former needs more attention. Of course, the media argues that they give people what they want, but being the fourth pillar of democracy, media needs to create an opinion of the people, change their mindsets, and force them to think.
Call yourself a journalist for bringing news. Not for changing scenarios. We must understand that if media has reported Jessica Lal enough, that has not gotten her justice. Her relatives, like you feel for Soumya, felt for her, and there were sincere lawyers who worked hard. As someone above put in rightly, Jessica wasn’t a journalist, it was just her kith and kin doing their bit for her by lighting candles. Same goes for the Bijal Trivedi rape case or the Uphaar tragedy. So before, being too self-congratulatory, let’s also be introspective. (continued below)

News is different from research, from a real story. Bhutto gets killed, a reporter is sent to cover her death, her funeral, create graphics of her face being hit by a bullet and then blood splattering on the screen ( I saw this on ndtv or times now) . Then, go to the archives, find her biography, put it as fast as possible on primetime, and then getting many experts to talk about the great movement of democracy in Pakistan, is this journalism? I didn’t see a single channel point out that in 60 years of Pakistan’s existence, Pakistan saw democracy for only 8 years of PPP rule, what role did Bhutto play in this? Why was PPP mired by corruption charges?

Answers to these questions is research, that is real journalism which is a rarity these days. Because like instant coffee and noodles, we also need instant news. We don’t want to go on the field, get our hands dirty. We want to go there because there is action. After the Bihar floods get over, why bother staying there finding out the administrative problems of the region ravaged by flood, oh, that can be done next year on an anniversary episode. Let’s move over to the new tragedy and cover that live. Real investigative journalism would be being able to find the truth, being able to say which is true – the Nanavati commission or the Banerjee Commission. Asking tough questions on ‘hard talk’ shows is easy, giving answers like these is difficult. That is called corroboration, a term seldom used or applied in Indian media. (

The trend of investigative journalism is catching up because we have new technical tools today. Does that mean it didn’t exist before? It did, and there were stories, there was courage too, except that one probably didn’t have enough embedded journalists! There was a P Sainath before the media boom who went to very depths of India to have reporting of the commoners. To show, that people get killed in rural India too. If you ask me, what media does, I would say, mostly, media gives us urban reality, of murders of models and journalists. Media doesn’t cover those 3 women who get raped everyday, because they are Dalits (Crime record data stats). If Soumya’s death makes headlines, Then Priyanka’s should to. She was raped in Khairlanji even after she was dead, can you imagine something more gruesome? And not just one day, her story needs to be repeated everyday till the perpetrators of the crime actually are brought to justice. Of course, even here, media thought it’s good that the criminals might get capital punishment. It is a victory for Dalits. Not a single newschannel in fact reported the irony of the verdict. That, it was given under grounds of murder, not any other section. The rape charges and the SCST Atrocities act was not even considered! It would be nice if instead of 400 reports for Lakme India Fashion Week and 40 to cover poverty issues, the ratio is reversed. (As Sainath puts it!) And I would like to see Sudan ( the number of killed is 4 lac and counting, turning into another Rwanda) get more attention than Sarah Palin’s moose barbecue.

No Country for Oscars: Is that what India is?

‘India is a country of more than 1700 dialects and 22 official languages, there are 6 major religions and geographically, India has fauna numbering 89,451 species

and some 47, 000 species of plants.’

Sounds like an excerpt from an EVS textbook, doesn’t it? Perhaps they should also include that this is the country where more than a 1000 films are churned out every year that make it to more than 12,000 cinema halls. Unfortunately, this is not a figure to be proud of, since out of these, there are only a handful that get popular with audiences, and an even lesser number in that are films which receive critical international acclaim.

Does this have something to do with the way we make films? Or the way we market them?

Whatever the case might be, the Academy Awards that were handed out this year would be a good measure to assess our cinema. Lets take a brief look at what happened at the 80^th Academy Awards – who won and why they won! The unique feature about this year’s academy awards was its truly international nature. The best actor Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis, with his dual Irish and British nationality, Tilda Swinton, winner for the best actress in a supporting role, again British, Marion Cotillard from France for best actress and Spanish actor Javier Bardem for the best actor in a supporting role. The line-up this year was surprisingly full of films that were bereft of typical Hollywood trademark: big stars, or top grossing films. The films had relatively unknown names (good actors, but not so popular stars), and most of them, focusing on a dark theme. Take ‘There will be Blood’ for example. The film, about a ruthless oilman (Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview) looks at the how capitalistic ideals of Plainview clash with the orthodox and fundamentalist church in California in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The film’s opening scene which has no dialogue to the climax which is full of melodrama and Plainview’s last line ‘I am finished’ also signalling the end of the film, show very powerful acting and direction. The film shows close ups of blood oozing along with oil coated black faces, befitting the title of the film and symbolically showing greed and violence.

Pitted against this, was the equally cold blooded ‘No country for Old Men’, a thriller set in West Texas about a drug deal that goes wrong and the series of consequences that emerge thereafter. The film got the Coen Brothers awards for best direction as well as best film. Both the films are based on novels, the former on Upton Sinclair’s Oil and the latter on Cormac McCarthy’s novel by the same name. Michael Clayton, Atonement, Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Juno were the other films that dominated the Oscars. The last two, Sweeney Todd and Juno added to the variety, Juno winning the award for the best screenplay, about an outspoken pregnant teen, it explored the theme of child pregnancy in a lighter way and the film was laced with pop culture lingo. Sweeney Todd, on the other hand, was a musical with a very unlikely theme (Most musicals are about romance and happy times!) – that of a barber who happens to be a serial killer, a fictional character that appeared in 19^th century British writing.

Contrast this with the films dished out in Bollywood – half of them are based on romance, the other half consist of rip-offs and remakes. I wonder what they mean when people remark that Indian cinema has come off age. Does it mean getting lost in the culture of remakes, rip offs and inspirations? Either we have old wine in a new bottle with the likes of ‘Devdas’, ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ and ‘Black’(Remakes with more glamour and better cinematography from PC Barua’s ‘Devdas’ ‘HDDCS’ from the low key ‘Woh Saat Din’ and Black from ‘The Miracle Worker’). Then there are the numerous films literally photocopied from their English counterparts, the likes of ‘Hum Tum’ (inspired from ‘When Harry Met Sally’) ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ (From ‘E.T- The Extra Terrestrial’), ‘Ghajini’ – from ‘Memento’ (Why, even the name by which we address our cinema ‘Bollywood’ is a rip off!).

If it is not remakes, then we are busy dishing out cheap skin flicks, that can be made quickly what with all the ‘Beauty Contests’ churning out models exclusively catering to the demand for actresses who are here today, gone tomorrow.

Theatre actors are only now beginning to make a mark in acting, with more new directors and the regulars like Ramgopal Verma (Indian Martin Scorcese with films exclusively focusing on the Indian underworld) casting them. Otherwise, it is always a beautiful face and a good figure (with a willingness to wear minimal clothing) and good lineage (be a Bacchan, or a Kapoor) that gets one a part in a film. With big bucks now being invested in films, and usage of digital technology, one would have thought that the standard of Indian films would improve. But except for Hanuman, there have not been many good indigenous animations made in India, nor are they used much in stunts (Dhoom-2 was a disaster). The big bucks go to the big stars, who well, are just that, ‘stars’, and not actors. Or they are lavishly and shamelessly spend on launch pads like ‘Saanwariya’ (another lineage starts film) with huge sets, big promos and absolutely no storyline or acting.

And no critique would be complete if I don’t comment on the ‘Great Indian Divide’ between ‘Those who watch art films and those who don’t’, any film that raises important questions about our society or has a different theme is immediately classified as ‘Art cinema’ or ‘Away from Mainstream Cinema’, thus automatically a spin is started around the movie portraying it to be not for the masses etc. Efforts are made to bridge the divide by making films like ‘Ashoka’, which end up making a laughing stock of the characters as well as the director.

There can be many reasons cited for lack of such films, firstly, the lack of audience, films normally are viewed by the general public as a medium of entertainment and not many people would pay up and spend 2 hours watching a film on farmers’ suicides or on the condition of scavengers in India (They remain restricted to documentaries) when they can watch lots of item numbers, foreign locales and mushy films with lots of kitschy colors and typically westernized sets. Then again, not many film makers would like to make films on an issue considered redundant. Of course, films also needn’t be made on themes that are ‘Indian’; they can be made on issues of global concern, animations, sci-fis, about the common man (Khosla ka Ghosla was an exception showing the apathy of common man)

I think it will take a long time for Indian film makers to realize that if a film has to be made hard hitting, it should not be glamorized, but shot in natural light, that just because you make a film sans songs, it doesn’t become ‘mature cinema’, that one need not exaggerate to the point of frustrating audiences (As in the case of Manish Jha’s ‘Matrubhoomi’) to make a strong point.

But well, we can’t lose heart since there is a positive new trend to look forward to with films like ‘Taare Zameen Par’ being made – the only problem being that in an industry of films with no strong stories, anything remotely good is made to be real big. TRP can’t be called a flawless movie, with its over-usage of graphics (a sequence completely ripped of from Calvin and Hobbes), long running time and caricaturized characters (the school teachers for example), it was a good film, not a great film. But one has to give credit to first time director, Aamir Khan, a la Indian Dan-day Lewis (who like him, believes in getting into the character and acts in one a movie per year)

What is the way out of all this? All I can say is that we should boycott remakes, rip offs, and encourage films like ‘Hazaaron Khwaisheyen Aisi’ by making sure that they don’t get restricted to only ‘Film Festivals’. If the directors have to copy a film then copy a Satyajit Ray’ ‘Pathar Panchali’ or try to remake ‘Pyasa’ –

That, now, would be an Oscar winning film!

‘Anari’ : The lovable loser

Saw the famous Raj Kapoor starrer ‘Anari’ yesterday, some moving dialogues,

“ Ehsaan tau amir log karte hain, hum garib tau keval madad karte hain”
(The rich do a favor, the poor just help)

“Garib mein burai nahi, garibi mein hai jo insaan aur insaaniyat dono ko barbaad kar deti hai”

(It is not the poor but poverty which is at fault, it destroys humans as well as humanity)

Lighting a candle on facebook

I have been bombarded with petitions, solidarity letters and posts, when there is a bomb attack, or on Tibet etc. All I am saying is this, 15 million people marched across the world in 2003 against the invasion of Iraq, it still happened. Perhaps one million people across India and Pakistan can sign a petition and give it to respective governments, but would it really stop the ISI from funding Lashkar to train terrorists? Would it stop any kind of retaliation that we might see now from the Indian government?

Do you know something? There was a warning from the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) to major hotel establishments that there is a bomb threat from LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba) and they (hotels) had beefed up their security arrangements. Only a week ago, they were relaxed because of complaints from hotel guests. That is a different thing that the terrorists entered from behind the hotel. But the point is this, there are certain rules and regulations, many of them made for our own benefit, but do we really follow them?

All I ask is this, next time you break a traffic signal, or don’t pay a fine, think about it. Next time you buy something in a plastic cover, think about it. Next time you are unreactive when something happens around you, a broken streetlight, someone spitting on the road, think about it. Next time you sit at home, too lazy or unmotivated to go and vote, think about it.

We need to be vigilant citizens, that’s it, and do our jobs well, that, is the more important thing. If tomorrow the security check is more vigilant when I board a plane, let me not crib, but put up with it. Or when I am asked to open my suitcase to reveal what I am carrying, let me comply with it.

If you want to salute the spirit of Mumbaikars, salute it everyday. Smile at the bus conductor and say thank you when he hands you the ticket. Don’t call the porter ‘coolie’ but call him by his name; don’t put down the waiter in the small restaurant if the spelling in the menu of ‘pasta’ is wrong. Don’t make fun of every single pot bellied havaldar you see, he might not be fit for his job, but he may have the spirit when it’s needed.

I agree token gestures like these help in morale building, but we need to have more than that. We need to have it in our everyday activities and not just as an emotional reaction to an event.

With due respect to everyone who is lighting a candle for this on facebook, or signing a petition.

Am I living in Kinshasa or Mumbai?

I woke up today, to a feeling of utter shame and fear, to the news of blasts and hostage takings in the Mumbai blasts. Fear at the thought of how unsafe one is in this country. And shame at the level of chaos that we are into. I would call it as bad as DR Congo. You can get raped anywhere if you are in the capital of the country. And if you are in the biggest business city, you get targeted by terrorists. In cafes, in railways stations, in restaurants, in five star hotels. This has never happened before. It is unimaginable that grenades and AK 47s are being hurled openly. The site at the CST passenger lobby sent shivers down my spine. And all I could think of were three incidents that took place recently. One, the long debate and the whole hullabaloo created over the Batla house incident by the media, by the likes of Arundhati Roy, and the JNU student’s groups. Why? Because 2 suspected terrorists with ample proof were gunned down. And what did they demand? They demanded a CBI enquiry. And second, that of the media coverage of the Malegaon suspects case. The entire ATS was focused on a blast that killed 2, without much surety as to who was behind it. A third incident that I thought of was that of the Congress party, begging for pardoning of Afzal Guru, terrorist and refusing to get POTA.

I understand that the Minority votebank is important to a lot of people. But don’t they realize this now? Even a Muslim will not dare vote Congress back in power. Because from Assam to Jaipur, from the Dargah in Ajmer to Benaras, terrorists are targeting us. If terrorists openly flaunt guns and kill people in one of the world’s busiest airports with all its high security and then scots free in a jeep, if the hotel where everyone from Bill Gates to the PM himself prefer to stay has 10 gunmen entering it (in a high security area) and going on a shooting spree, what of people like us? We, who take the Mumbai suburban trains and the Delhi Metro everyday, who like to hang out at Leopold’s and Connaught Place?

Are we the lesser civilians here?

After the 9/11, there has not been a single attack on the American soil. Yes, they have done their own blunders. But one has to marvel their homeland security systems. Not a single terrorist has dared to step on their soil and harm an American. And no, the argument that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter is outdated. The moment an innocent is killed, be it the boy who picked up the tiffin in Delhi which was a bomb, or the nurse, who was blasted off the hospital ward in Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. The moment, any of these civilians are targeted, the person is not a freedom fighter, but a terrorist. And that is when, we do need POTA, we do need to be hard on terror and we do need to stop putting the majority at risk for a few minority votes.

Silk tablecovers and Poverty eradication

I have been in this sector long enough to realize how paradoxical it is. I am talking about NGOs – the name that has made being anti-government and anti-corporate glamorous. Picture this -

India Habitat Centre – A hall with beautiful crystal chandeliers, chairs wrapped in white with cute yellow silk ribbons tied around them with a perfect bow on the back. Fine china filled with mouthwatering cucumber sandwiches, cut to perfection, Earl gray tea in la opala tea cups, and of course, melt in your mouth cookies. And then, people start filling in.

Rustle of starched cotton saris from FabIndia, oxidized jewellery, large red bindis and graceful smiles – discussing the many theories of development, debating over the latest statistics on poverty, analyzing the socio-economic and gender modules and so on. Men in elegant kurtas and kolhapuri slippers with jholas hanging having a quiet smoke in the corner, beards and mouths moving as they plan filing the PIL and discuss how to make the proposal better with more pictures of poverty stricken people to get more funding from the Ford Foundation.

It all reminds me of the Master Card Advertisement, Hall charges – Rs 15,000, Hotel bookings – Rs 100,000, Travel by air – Rs 200,000, conference lunches – Rs 50,000, Documentation – Rs 100,000, payment to the paper presenters – Rs 200,000…
and value of the conference in the end – some cards exchanged, some networks created, some egos inflated to satisfaction, and maybe an individual or two feeling enriched.

I know the usual argument is that NGOs need to be more professional and so creating an environment like this is good. But why can’t one be a professional like Aruna Roy or Medha Patkar or Baba Amte? They are spearheading NGOs which have actually make a difference. Without the brouhaha and the glamour.

I have never seen a glossy pamphlet with the photo of a poor little girl, watery nose and an innocent smile on her face of an NGO like MKSS or Baba Amte’s movement.

Why then can’t we just go to a municipal school hall, sit in it, discuss the issues at hand, conclude and wrap up whatever we have in 2 days without getting into all these accessorial items!

Celebrating singlehood. Not me.

Typical images – a pen, a cup of frothy coffee, some pink pencils (yuck!) and then hours spent penning down Shobha De type novels. A friend of mine sent me a blog that she liked, and wow, it made me write this one, about single women in Delhi, many of them in media, and their fun single life. A cynical distasteful take at it
I have changed.
I have grown up.
I don’t enjoy reading blogs written by single women about their girlfriends, trying to emulate a ‘sex and the city’ lifestyle
‘I don’t have a lifestyle, I have a life’ – From the movie California Suite spoken by Hannah – the politician, the character I identify with! (or would ideally like to emulate too, especially her acid tongue at times, or do I already have it?) Let me describe a single woman in Delhi. She will not get her hair cut short to wear her feminism on her sleeve, but she would keep in longer, showing that one can be beautiful and single – taking feminism a step further. And of course, there is no bra-burning, there is a closet full of yucky red frilly lingerie (Shucks, I sound like a feminist now!) and shoes. Lots of them – with matching dresses bought from North Block, oh this is a ‘Shane and Falguni Peacock’ original or from ‘Mango’. Oh, and they always have to have a cat – a single woman’s best friend – a cat. And an apartment somewhere in GK-1. Which would have lots of cushions with silk cushion covers in a riot of colours, lots of pot pourri, and
paraphernalia bought from Delhi Haat.
And they have to go shopping in Khan Market. You will find them in twos with names like Mona and Priti. Fussing over lipbalms and eyes shadows in Bodyshop, then going to ‘Big Chill’ for some pasta and some yummy dessert, typically blueberry cheesecake or a brownie with hot chocolate sauce. Which will always be followed by a late night rendezvous in one of the pubs where over glasses of red wine, they would so called ‘bond’ (actually bitch) about men (all the while hoping to get noticed by men) and celebrate singlehood.

Well I do it to, its just that I can’t believe someone does it 24/7. Too much of pink makes me nauseous actually.

Raindrops..

“Walking in the rain, all by myself is something of a routine I follow year after year. I have been doing that since I suppose the time I discovered the healing powers of little raindrops falling continuously on your skin, soaking it, rejuvenating it. Accompanying it, the cool breeze, the soft noise made by thousands of droplets, the sight of leaves bathed in water, a bright green color, flowers looking more hued than ever , to lift your spirits.
Come monsoon, and my mind invariably wanders off in a world of its own. I find romance in every little activity I do. From wearing my baby pink mackintosh, to the cup of coffee shared with that someone special, there is something magical about this season.
Of course, the umbrella acting as a shield against the rain and as cupid at the same time when enveloping two people torments the heart, making me feel that there is nothing in this world that is more important than love, and my loved one.

Lost in this reverie, I don’t realize that I have walked past the greenery, the buildings, and the shiny clean cobble stoned road and now am facing a dun colored scenery. Actually, not so much of scenery, just a scene. I walk here often but what I am looking at now is very different. It is a part of the town with the worst living conditions, and it worsens with the onset of rains.
Ignored and ghettoized by people and the officials, this area has no arrangement of anything remotely like a drainage system, so now, what you see is
‘Water water everywhere and not an outlet of escape’.

The floor is wet, because the jute bags that form the makeshift carpeting cum flooring are sodden and cold, the tin sheets, and the canvas awnings, the temporary roof, are also leaky. So, it is doom from heaven and earth crushing the human spirit living in that shanty. There is no way out from this Catch-22 situation. The luxury of lighting a fire is impossible, and so that source of warmth is also extinguished.
My eyes fall on the a young woman perhaps in her late teens, sheltering a baby with her saree, damp again, and the little baby wailing endlessly in need of more warmth than the mother’s clammy body can provide. I ask her if she has fed him anything, and with a sudden shiver, she tells me that they haven’t been able to cook anything because of the rains. Her brown eyes still hold a glimmer of hope as she tells me about her husband gone to get reinforcements, food that is not soggy, perhaps a place where she and her baby enjoy the privilege of dryness.

What I see next as I walk on from one house to another is more or less the same, just differing in the kind of misery. At one place, I see a man whose face I think I won’t be able to forget ever. I don’t want to look at him because I don’t know why, that will make me feel guilty. Involuntarily my eyes meet his; I don’t know how to describe that expression. Helplessness, frustration, regret and a kind of indifference, all are mirrored into them, as if they are overflowing with too many emotions, just like the water all over his little niche. He explains how he had bought raw material worth Rs.1000 to weave mats for sale, but before he could put it in a safe place, the battle cry of lighting and thunder announcing the arrival of rains started resonating.
And I don’t need to mention who won this one-sided battle. He is hoping against hope that maybe the sun will show up tomorrow and he would be able to dry the bamboo shavings and maybe, there would be no damage to them. I mutter to myself, that’s a too many ‘Maybes’.

I am suddenly filled by a sense of helplessness. A part of me wants to go back in the world where I can have samosas with friends with a hot cuppa, where I can enjoy watching the rain from my room’s tall French windows, and talk endlessly on the phone about the whole experience with ‘him’. Then again, a force, out of my control, carries me to the next house and the one after that.

When I reach home, I am dripping wet, but some of it, to my surprise is sweat, I am suddenly scared of something. I shouldn’t have gone there, I was happy in my knowledge of all the joys that monsoon brings, now that innocent feeling of pure joy is tarnished by memories that force me to rethink the whole ‘Romantic Rains’ scenario. Much as I try, I just can’t get over what I saw. I know something in me today changed forever.”