Mixing up matters

As did the Hindi commentator’s remark when Sachin Tendulkar was caught driving dangerously in Madras. "Wah se aah", he said like a TV commercial. Can’t tell you who the commentator was because we weren’t properly introduced. Frequently, we were told someone was on air but he wasn’t. Of course he might have been up there somewhere but he wasn’t where we were told he was. Example: at one point during the Indo-Pak battle, the names of Glen Turner and Bishen Singh Bedi flashed onto the TV screen; instead, we heard a well-bred voice in Hindi and it wasn’t Bedi’s.

And then, as if Saeed Anwar wasn’t aggravating enough, the commercial breaks added to our agony. At the end of a nerve-wracking over, we’d cut for an advertisement even as the batsmen were completing a run or the commentators their sentence. If you have ever watched STAR Sports and ESPN, you will know this is simply not cricket. The rites of passage between the game in progress and the commercials which are helping to pay for it, are conducted in a gentlemanly, dignified manner: whatever is happening at the stadium is shown, then the commentator hollers out the score above the din of spectators or the silence of the lambs (depending on who is winning and losing) and only then do we drink in the sight of a Pepsi or Coke.

During the Independence Cup, DD would cut suddenly to squeeze in as many ads as possible (in order to squeeze out as much money as possible). In the process, DD did a CNN on us: it mixed up visual and audio tracks. So, suddenly, we’d hear the commentators doing what they’re paid to do and we’d see an ad with children doing what they’d been paid to do (eat).

Onto Hasratein (Zee) where the action is getting bolder every episode. She’s just grabbed courage between her shapely hands and gone public with KT and who should be the first person she chances upon? Her erstwhile husband. Not fair. She’s sitting at a restaurant trying to eat but will he let her? No. He stares and stares and stares at her till she is as soft and pulpy as the food on her plate. KT calmly sips his beer and masticates. Then, he dabs his mouth politely with his napkin and in the friendliest possible manner, suggests to hubby that he might like to look elsewhere.

Next, KT and Savi are lying decorously apart on a double bed when mommie dearest comes calling. Himani Shivpuri is soulfully tragic; it must the first role in which she is not asked to flirt, bitch, plot, betray and treat her face like a dance floor on which every feature is moving to the beat of a different drum. Savi refuses to acknowledge her as "ma" which heaves ma’s bosom like a weightlifter’s before a jerk. It’s all very sad and predictable.

Recommended viewing: Kulpurush (DD1). A fine story and some good acting lift this above the ordinary. It’s about the Naxalite movement and what happens to men when things go horribly wrong. Take Mohan Gokhale: emaciated, sallow, unshaven and with a bad leg, he looks disillusioned, beaten. His wife teaches, coughs and endures though her eyes speak as eloquently as his. There is also a 15 year old son. Nice chap, bewildered by life. Last week, chacha came visiting from "back home" (Moscow). He’s distressed by the sight of Gokhale. "I just can’t take it," he exclaims. But forget the words, the action. The silent pauses, the hopeless expressions on the actors faces tell a much more poignant tale.

Lastly, Jaipal Reddy was interviewed on In Focus (Home TV) and he reiterated his desire not to take any position on the Broadcast Bill, or to prejudice the debate on it. How can a minister introduce a bill in Parliament without taking any position on it or expressing any opinion other than the one which states that he has no opinion?