Media frenzy in India

Wa-kee-wa, a palindrome in pronunciation and an African word if I heard it right, in the movie Blood Diamond, which means, watz up boy ? Boy says, Heroes homecoming was yesterday's news bulletin in CNN - IBN, now called as TV 18 network, and Welcome home was the front page blow up in Times of India (TOI) newspaper today. And who are the heroes ? No Arnold, no Bruce Willis, no Megastar, no Superstar, no Shahrukh, no Hrithik and no not even our soldiers, who are the REAL heroes who never get a recognition from the media, who fight day in and day out at the Siachen and Burma borders protecting every inch of space which is being attacked by neighbouring countries. Fortunately, India is covered with oceans to the left and right half of it's side, otherwise half the billion population would have gone in protecting the country. The real heroes according to the media, are our cricketers who won the Twenty20 World cup, beep. I was a good boy in my previous post, but don't expect that here.

You must have known by now that I can talk a bit about cricket and despite that I detest the media hype that is being clattered around our cricketers. To me, T20 world cup victory hardly matters. Yes, they defeated the best teams in the abruptly condensed form of the game, but T20 format is a money spinner, a great spectacle for the fans and a massive boost for the game that can extend cricket to to other non-playing countries. Fullstop. Gone are those days where I used to quickly turn the newspaper to the last page for sports, specifically a gusted interest to see a headline on cricket. Now it's all cricket on the front page. Everything else is taking a backseat. Everyone's is cashing on the game and the real purpose of watching a news bulletin is lost. I hate that to the core. I wonder how non-cricket fans, who call it a mad game where a person hits the ball and the other 11 on the field are there to stop it, running amok like a jerk, from reaching the boundary, jumping and diving in the process, would feel it. And to add this frenzy, TV18 talks to it's reporters at three different locations possibly - Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore - in their prime time news bulletin at 9pm for 10 minutes - asking them, why don't we get recognition for other sports like hockey and football or even Chess, where Viswanathan Anand might be a World Grandmaster again, other than cricket. And the reporters or the experts in the studio said, cricket has been the passion or interest of the people without actually answering the question. Rightly so, you'd never expect a correct answer for the answers which are inherently known to everyone. They air cricket in their primetime to increase their TRP ratings. They air Salman Khan's departure from Mumbai to Jodhpur, including the flight details and the time, coz he is the Bollywood's good boy, but projected bad boy. A reporter will be in Mumbai before the flights departure asking his counterpart at Jodhpur , Has the flight got delayed ? They tell you what Sanjay Dutt ate in his jail when he was arrested in connection with the 93' Mumbai blasts. In doing so, they get more ads,they can increase their revenues. If one news channel does that, other 24 x 7 news channels including the regional channels, are forced to do the same, if not, they are caught napping. It's all about money, honey.

Despite the surge in news channels, I still feel, the slow yet steadily paced DD English news is the best. Anything in excess, vexes. So I got fed up at TV18's coverage and the unprecedented interest those news readers show in delivering the content to the public including the diction. It appears all sham when they show all about cricket's wham-bham. I am not too far from rapping.
I switched to Discovery again, and they are back to their regular stuff, though watch worthy this time. I have the liberty to create my own words in blogging and you have the privilege to read those. A reporter goes to Northern India, around the Himalayas - Uttarakhand region, but centered around the Ganges / Gangotri flowing places, on her search for spiritual quest. It's quite soothing to see that show. I had been to Hrishikesh and outer mountain ranges in the Himalayas. It was quite an experience. A very pleasant one. Anything around the Ganges and the Himalayas, trying to know about the history is appeasing. Ganges is so pure, you have to see it, to believe it. One can see the real nature there. Am I not mellowing down? So the reporter asks a Sadhu who has been spending his life for 40 odd years in one of the villages around the Himalayan border - Who am I ? Where have I come from? And where I am going in this life? The Sadhu quietly replies, you have to isolate yourself from the self.