News meeows - 3

I should not be commenting on this, for in doing so I am only adding to the media frenzy. But what I saw while switching channels was something that made my stomach turn. A woman reporter of CNN-IBN was doing everything to gatecrash into the Aishwariya-Abhishek wedding site. They showed her talking to security guards, they showed her attempting to go to other buildings; then she was in the middle of the road, and finally she had climbed up a tree. She ended the report by saying how tired she was and the final image was of her drinking water from a bottle while panting a little.

Where were these enthusiastic reporters when 700 hutments were demolished two days ago? I could not even find a report to post here. The only evidence I saw was a picture of the devastated site with a child carrying a fan from the debris. Unfortunately, I cannot locate that picture on the website; it was there in the print version.

Do you know that the CNN-IBN reporter will be considered a great heroine by the staff, by her peers, by all those salivating masses? She risked her life and limb, did she not?

Today’s national newspaper Times of India carried several stories and even a special report. I refuse to put up pictures of what they managed to ‘capture’, although this banner headline in sick pink with its wedding card-like design should give you an idea. I am not sure if there is a deal with Hello! magazine or a foreign channel for exclusive coverage. It is unfair to conjecture.

Whether it is so or not, the Indian media are behaving like beggars. Yes, beggars.

And even those who have shown some propriety are doing so for two reasons. One, they just don’t have the resources. Trust me, I know. Two, they want to pander to the family. Especially film journalists who have otherwise trampled on everyone’s toes to get a scoop have the audacity to talk about “leaving them alone”. This too is simple. They want to be the loyalists, the ones who kept their word. They shall be later rewarded.

Such BS.

I have said this in an earlier blog. This privacy thing is a smart strategy. Either way you win. What was Amar Singh doing on TV telling the world in an exclusive interview about how the valet and chef were given invitation cards because they “mattered”? Why is this information not private? Or is it to tell the world that the Bachchans are so attached to their staff? Bloody hell, the personal valet will be tying the shoe laces and keeping the clothes ready and cooks will be helping in the kitchen. So whether you invite them or not you need them. If all the guests were sent notes asking them not to speak, then who is giving out information about the songs that were sung, the clothes worn, the dances?

Here is one more thing that made my stomach turn. “An emotional Aishwarya Rai burst into tears at the sangeet ceremony on Wednesday evening at Prateeksha, Amitabh Bachchan’s Juhu bungalow. According to industry sources, Abhiash performed to every song played that evening, but Ash couldn’t contain her emotions after she touched Abhishek’s feet in one of the songs.”

If this is true, then it is beyond disgusting. It is a custom among Hindus to touch the feet of elders; perhaps in the old days women did bow before their husbands. But today? Bollywood films and TV serials continue to perpetuate this, but why should it be replicated in real life? And anyway Aishwariya is slightly older, so if anyone should be touching feet it ought to be Abhishek.

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I have commented on the Indian media coverage of the Virginia Tech killngs. A question that struck me: would we have given it this much attention if two Indians had died had the university been in Papua New Guinea?

It is indeed true what the comments below say about Indians aping the West. The more tie-ups we have with foreign channels and newspapers, the more slavish we will become. We have had good ‘women’s magazines’. Yet, people want regional versions of Elle and Cosmo; now Hello! has come in, when every newspaper carries a few pages of gossip, glitter and gas. (That is the way they treat most news as well.)

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I started watching American Idol only to see what on earth this Sanjaya Malakar noise was all about. And you know what? If I had not read reams written about it or seen glimpses in the Indian media, I would have seen him and the show as a tepid display of complete lack of talent. Nobody is that great among the lot. I had read that Simon Cowell was hard to please. Uh-huh, he looked like he was trying so hard to have an opinion to begin with. Totally idiotic.

True, am not a fan of contemporary western music, except perhaps the blues and some neat rap (oh yeah, so what?!), but if you know a bit of music, then you can tell these guys are goners.

Why the hell do they scream so much? Are they just “blowin’ in the wind”?

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Not all is lost. In the case of the ‘rash driving’ by Alistair Pereira in Mumbai I wrote about, who got away with a mere six-month sentence for killing seven people, there is some hope.

Here is a report from the TOI, “There can’t be a greater slur on the system. The way the prosecution dealt with the case was pathetic.’’ Bombay high court Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar’s observations on Thursday delivered the most telling blow yet to the Mumbai police for its “mishandling’’ of the Alistair Pareira hit-and-run case. Invoking a rarely used provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) that gives the high court extraordinary powers to examine the legality of proceedings in any subordinate court, a division bench comprising the Chief Justice and Justice S C Dharmadhikari called for records from ad hoc sessions judge A Mishra who had delivered the judgment acquitting Pareira of culpable homicide.

The judges indicated that they would look into four aspects of the trial— the legality of the judgment, whether there was miscarriage of justice, the conduct of the police and the prosecution and the compensation awarded to the victims and their survivors.

These surviving family members deserve justice.