Since there are two kinds of ideas, good and bad, I have all my ideated along two lines. So naturally enough, all ideas that ever ate up whatever percentage of my gray cells and drained and weakned my brain can be classified into two groups. The first being good. The second being better. But mishtake happened just an hour or so back. I watched (by mishtake, if i may add) hard talk extra on BBC World. They ran an interview with Paul Anka. Pleasure, I must say, though I don't know my grunge from heavy metal and cannot figure words in most angrezi songs unless they are of the 'love, love me do, say i love you' or some such nonsensically juvenile variety. Anka came across as a refreshingly sober, humane, humble creature who looked like your nice uncle next door. Goos teller of tales. And the reason was the interviewer, who must not have asked more than five or seven questions in the whole half-hour programme.
What the guy did, instead, was to let Anka talk. After all, that's why the man had been invited in the first place, right? He smiled and laughed with Anka, and more than anything else listened to the old man. Just as I smiled and laughed with Anka, and listened to the old man. That was the channel's primary objective, and the interviewer did it with aplomb.
What happened next was pretty awful. Okay, I'll give a blow-by-blow account:
# First the programme got over (aw, no)
# Then the credits started rolling (aw, no)
# Then I had to make a decision which way to go with the remote: forward or back (aw, no. hard decision extra after hard talk extra, eh?)
# Then I decided to move ahead (aw, aw, that was revolutionary. i really never move ahead in life. and that's on principle)
# Then I went to CNN (aw, they were running some stupid news report that none in the world apart from some dangerously senile Americans care a fig about)
# Then I landed on planet NDTV.
# Then I saw that daadi (with a hard second D, as in beard), whatshisname.. Srinivasana Jain.. interviewing Suketu Mehta (aw, did the big daadi of 'em all, Roy sahab, ever wonder why the programme is called Bombay talkies when it's neither about films nor about mumbai as such. but i decide to pardon him for the time being. i have other worries to worry about, as you shall see shortly)
# Then I saw the lill daadi (still with a hard second D, as in beard) pose, interpose, superimpose himself on poor Mehta every second minute
# And it was then that I realised what exactly irritated me about indian television anchors and journalists (the two come from different planets, provided we agree the second variety exists on indian TV). They cut into an interviewee every secoind minute and try to put their point across with a smartass of a question that none save the shithead's silly partner in bed cares a fig about. They show off their non-existing intellect, and basically try to come across as super-dedicated journalists who believe in a) never letting the subject talk about the subject at hand for more than a minute and half ; and b) trying to get a "sensational and breaking-news" quote with every moronic question.
Imagine what lill daadi (awmygosh, still with a hard second D, as in beard), would have done with poor Paul, the Anka. He would have gone all guns blazing and get him to say something on the lines of 'Nirvana was a super shithead of a band', and then pat his own back and lick his own dead gray cells for breaking a news.
#Anyway, then the programme got over, and i moved over to India TV.
But that's a different tale to be told another day.
PS: Dear Mr Laden, if you happen to be gunning past this line, please use some money and brain of yours and buy out all indian tv news channels. Then make all anchors, super anchors and morons working for them spend a year in that cave of yours.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment