YE JO PUBLIC HAI

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The light flashes......the frame is adjusted......the mike is set, alert and watchful........the camera rolls.....the subject performs as per order......even adds a few inputs of her own......PERFECT SHOT....enough to draw tears from the audience. This is not a film shoot folks. That's the reporter. And that's the mother who has lost her son. Lights off. This is a phenomenon that's increasingly making its presence felt today. Much of the public now is no longer the babe in the woods. They are smart. They are aware. They know. In short they are media savvy. Its just not the media which plays with them. They too can craftily play with it. So, much of the public today is no more camera conscious. They are not awed by the brute. And neither by the intruder holding that metallic stub with a trailing wire who invades his private space with a vulgar ease.....

GUN N GANDHI

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A frustrated youth. His friend dead. His life in shambles. One man responsible. He picks up a revolver. Shoots him to death. The End. A frustrated youth. His love-life dead. His life in shambles. One man responsible. He sends him flowers. Makes him understand. Bad guy has a change of heart. The End. So what was the difference? One used the gun: the other used Gandhi. But what was common? Both garnered audience applause and box-office moolah. 2006 will be remembered among other things, as a year that gave us both Rang de Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai. Two completely opposite films. Opposite ideologies. Opposite paths. Opposite ends. And yet, both were equally lapped up. A startling testament to the fact that in our country today, both the gun and Gandhi find equal support. RDB of course is much more complex of the two. Despite its....

THOSE SEVEN STEP-DAUGHTERS

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We call our country Bharat Mata - the Mother Nation which has untold love and affection for its children. For us Indians all states should be equal. And for any newspaper or TV channel that claims to be 'national' it can hardly afford to neglect any state for whatever reason. So why has the Indian media so criminally neglected the seven states of the North-East? Why is the region still an alien mystery? An arcane culture? Why does the NE seem so distant and exotic? When a prominent Hindi channel gives the weather report, the graphics radar sweeps through the breadth of the nation merrily dotting the capitals with their highs and lows. It comes till Kolkata and sometimes Guwahati and then sswisshh! it takes a shapely U-turn towards the Eastern Coastal region. The bypass has to be seen to be believed as if it has been repelled.....

DTC Shrews

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The bus halts. Grind-n-wind. There is clambering up the stairs. Thud-n-rud. People clear out. Rustle-n-bustle. The form swallows a seat. Meow-the cat purrs. Its a cat. Its a 'behn.' Its superwoman. Hollah! The DTC shrew. Centuries ago Prince Petruchio had tamed Katherine the shrew. Today, you wont find anyone chivalrous person to combat these DTC mataharis. As a regular commuter of the Delhi Transport Confusion...oops Corporation, I have encountered these divas for whom the single rule is-Might is Right. I remember one morning when a poor ill-starred fellow bore the brunt by snatching their official privilege. He committed the ultimate sacrilege of occupying a vacant ladies seat. Lord! In rumbled a shrew sole priestess of that high seat. 'Seek and ye shall find' said the Saviour but for the lady it was 'Shriek and ye shall find.' And shriek she did. Needless to say the emasculated usurper....

Let there be God

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God Almighty first created light. Then this planet. Mountains and seas. Sun and moon. Plants and animals. And then he fashioned his masterpiece. The Anthropomorph. Man - the highest creation. And then he took a weekly off. He would not have rested so peacefully if he had known that a role-reversal was soon to happen. That Creation would no longer remain a divine prerogative. It would no more be a godly secret. That the created will turn upon the creator. That God alone will not create Man. But Man will start creating Gods. A procession of devotees snakes its way up through the winding hills. It is an awe-inspiring sight. The pace is slow but determined. The mountain air throbs with cries of 'Har Har Mahadev' The young clamber up while the old trudge on bent over sticks. They are tired and worn out and yet walk on....

Readers don't digest

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Readers Digest woke up one morning. Readers Digest had a bright new idea. Readers Digest thought of taking a survey to find out which is the 'Rudest City' on post-lapsarian earth today. Readers Digest sent 2000 of its employees to on the mission. Readers Digest's employees came back with precious data. And Readers Digest presented the unanimous verdict....Its amchi Mumbai folks that needs urgent lessons in etiquette. And as is always the case with such surveys, the post mortem has begun. Or as Agatha Christie would say, the Inquest starts. So how seriously should we take the survey? Take it with not a pinch but loads of salt, I would say. The fundamental problem with such surveys is that they are always relative. Relative to the place, people and time it is conducted. The sobriquet itself defeats any possibility of objective absolutism. It is a highly subjective affair.....

'TO KIDS WITH REGRET'

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Dear Kids of MP, Hello darlings. This is Mother Goose. U must be sorry to know that very soon you will not be reading my nursery rhymes in your schools anymore. I know how much you kids enjoy 'Jack n Jill' and 'Ding dong Bell.' Oh yes! How you love to sing 'Johnny Johnny Yes Papa' and open your little mouths wide in the end to say 'ha ha ha.' How you bend down to your feet when you prattle 'One Two buckle my shoe.' How your chorus 'Twinkle twinkle little star' and I see your eyes shine just like the 'diamond in the sky.' Yes my cherubs, I have seen all that. For all these years. Alas, all this will be over soon. I am told that my songs are bad. They are alien. They are 'foreign'. They are 'English.' Leftovers of the colonial past.....