Musings ...

It has been an awefully long time since I last blogged, and for the life of me, I cannot come up with a proper explanation for this. Anyway, I finally found enough inspiration and drive to blog again, and I hope you enjoy this effort. As usual, there are multiple issues I have commented on here, in no particular order, but they are all subjects that attracted me unusually and significantly.

A lot of stuff has been happening lately that is worth mentioning here, but about which I wouldn’t elaborate. Michael Schumacher returned to F1 to pair up with old pal Ross Brawn, a celebrated tiger found his territory ravaged completely, a Nobel peace prize winner pushed thousands of troops to fight in a heavily protracted theatre of war, the Ferozshah Kotla pitch again was in the news for the wrong reasons (Last time, the ruckus was followed by Kumble’s 10-wicket haul. Let’s hope for something similar this time around too…, though it doesn’t take away the ignominy and embarrassment.), and a grossly inaccurate movie & a hopeless sham of a conference marked the global “awareness” about the fate of Mother Earth

But I have some other things I’d like to talk about. I watched two Hindi movies in two days which had, for a change, a soul of their own and had a warm feeling about them. The first, strictly in chronological order, was Rocket Singh – Salesman of the Year. A no-frills movie about a young man who strives to carve out a niche for himself by superimposing his ideals and sensibilities on an ethically-flawed cut-throat business environment, has a distinct message for the contemporary global environment. Backed by a highly sensible story by the impressive Shimit Amin, and excellent performances by Ranbir Kapoor (the believable & likeable Rocket Singh), Manish Choudhary (the arrogant and stop-at-nothing Suri), Naveen Kaushik (with his trendy sideburns & street-smart sharpness), Gauhar Khan (the intelligent “customer relations executive”) and D. Santosh (the porn-loving Hyderabadi maintenance guy), and others like Prem Chopra and Mukesh Bhatt, the movie is as much a statement in-sync with the times as it is an ode to integrity and ethics. Though set in Mumbai, the film has a distinct Delhi feel, and that is not because the protagonist is a “Joker Sardaar”. The message of the movie is very much in line with emerging business sensibility that emphasizes relentless customer focus and people management. A nice watch…

The second movie, 3 Idiots, is another masterpiece from Rajkumar Hirani’s stable. Notwithstanding the mud-slinging that is going on regarding the credits of the movie, the film has its own charm and beauty. It has significant similarities with Munnabhai – the wonder treatment of patients, the face - offs between the protagonist and the principal, the “is baar ka paper main set karunga” situations, the South Indian stuck at the second position on merit lists and yes, the same healthy sweet heart-warming feel. The trio from RDB, teamed up with the Munnabhai stable, has done it once again, aided by others like the adorably irritating Omi Vaidya as Chatur and the sweetly restrained Kareena as Pia. Yes, the plot has its implausibility and yes, the movie may be interpreted by some as glorifying indiscipline, but I liked the movie solely because of its treatment and its after-taste.

Shifting tracks, next on my agenda is a disturbing trend that is slowly pervading the field of journalism. It is the phenomenon of yellow journalism and its more criminal variant which is nowadays being termed as the “paid news syndrome”. This refers to the condition where powerful entities are buying media space and obscuring unbiased news by projecting engineered information. In an age where customer is fashionably projected to be the king, this corporatization of the media is in effect tantamount to making the customer is just a meek bystander, indeed a slave of the money-wielding powers. Recently, it was highlighted how a series of “articles” (they were nowhere labeled as “advertisements”) extolling the virtues of the then Maharashtra CM candidate Ashok Chavan adorned huge centrespreads of various dailies across Maharashtra (including the largest circulated daily in Maharashtra) during the election campaign. All the pieces appearing on a certain day had almost identical wordings in all the dailies. While Mr.Chavan has declared that he only spent a total of Rs.5,379/- for advertising in the print media, the pieces, if “paid” by Mr. Chavan, must have cost him crores of rupees. (A contesting candidate cannot spend more than 10lacs of rupees for electoral candidature promotion.) This, at once, points to 2 malices – apart from the prospect of “paid news” being published, this also points to a clear breach of electoral norms. The Times Group runs a service called Medianet Online whose official focus is “to augment print media with other media vehicles to provide a complete end-to-end PR solution to customers.” But a look at the website would reveal that the site has immense potential for yellow journalism and creation of paid-news. Indeed, journalists from prominent media mastheads have been arrested accepting bribes from parties for posting laundered information on various modes of mass media. The villainous prospects of news laundering were also covered, albeit immaturely, in the movie Mission Istanbul. Additionally, the mushrooming of news channels in the recent times is both a cause and an effect of news – corporatization and yellow journalism. All this creates an alarming setting where the media, lured by financial distractions, is increasingly losing its righteousness, its allegiance to the ethics of news coverage and is fast becoming the world’s most elaborate soap serial.

Finally, I focus on the recent initiative jointly launched by the Times Group from India and the Jung Group from Pakistan called “Aman ki Asha” or the Hope for Peace. The initiative aims at fostering a climate of mutual trust and friendship between the ill-fated step twins, India and Pakistan. The initiative, as worded by the editors, aims at initiating a people-to-people contact, hoping sincerely that a significant success in this endeavor would force the respective governments to engage in more meaningful and forcefully reconciliatory dialogue. Aman ki Asha, a commendable concept in itself, correctly identifies that the common awaam on both the sides of the border is willful of a mutually peaceful milieu in the region. But it is a little naïve to hope that a people-to-people contact would lead up to a government level bonhomie. This is neglecting political and strategic machinations and foolishly hoping for a resolution. It is well-known that the common people never wanted the partition, they never wanted the wars, they never wanted Kargil, and they enjoy Lata Mangeshkar and Euphoria as much as they adore Abida Parveen and Strings. But state diplomacy and political will has its roots somewhere else, and these roots are too strong and well-developed to be uprooted by a friendly “public” environment. Thus, I fear “aman ki asha”, for all its well-meaning charm, may end up just being a good beginning.

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