The horror, the horror

Have these social conflagrations really increased or is it that the media, particularly television with its immediacy, is exaggerating these events, blowing them out of proportion — and our house down?

Someone said: women are raped all the time, nuns have been raped before — never before have they received so much attention. Now, there is even the suspicion that this nun may not have been raped: so why did television rush in whereeveryone should have been fearful to tread?

These are very sensitive issues in terribly troubled times; when the centre is weak, things are falling apart — or so we believe every time we switch on the news. So shouldn’t television, with its ability to crumble your core with its visual potency, exercise extreme caution when reporting on sectarian issues? Shouldn’t it give less rather than more space to those creating news — the Thackerays, the Jayalalithas, the men who dug up the Kotla cricket pitch, because making’ news, fabricating it, is part of their game?

These questions face the print media too. But television has become the first information report, and therefore, our first point of reference. When the Babri Masjid was demolished, DD refused to run its extensive footage of the event, not only because DD’s state-controlled but also because there was the fear, real or unfounded, that the visuals of people scampering up and down the mosque would inflame passions and we would all die in a night ofthe long knives.

The same dilemma faces us now. To show or not to show, what to show or not to show — those are the questions. The educated answer is that we must see the horror in order to be moved, in order to be repulsed, in order to do something about it. Lest we forget. Alas, we don’t live in an educated society. So is it the correct answer?

As for the news makers: we could do with fewer Thackerisms and Jaya-jayas. Suppose we did not treat their every word as a headline? Would we rob them of their power to disturb our universe? It’s certainly worth thinking about.

India’s Most Wanted (Zee): the name suggests a countdown show. Which it is, in a manner of speaking — a countdown to catching criminals. When it started out we thought it was a joke; but its popularity forces us to take it seriously. Why is a weekly 30-minute programme devoted to old crimes raking in the public? Firstly, the subject: this is not Pankaj Mohandas’ Kapoor or Anita KC’ Kanwar chasing imaginary murderers; thesekillers, like Chander Mohan Pandit, are real and more importantly, on the loose. You see their photographs, you listen to their victims or the victims’ families describe the crimes, the criminals, you watch dramatic reconstructions of the events. Inexpertly handled, crudely shot and produced as a home video. It is technically and aesthetically displeasing but the lack of sophistication, perhaps, lends it an authenticity missing in X-Zone, Saturday Suspense or Bhanwar. It has the staged drama of the real.

Then, there is the question of pace: India’s Most Wanted (IMW) is lively, busy, happening. It has an urgency, a sense of impending danger communicated through the quick takes, the beat of the music, the sing-song earnestness of presenter Suhaib Ilyasi (who wears anything he can lay his hands on — bow ties and red waistcoat one week, kurta-pyjama the next), the tabloid flashes which throb the TV screen: “Call Now!”, “Call the Police Now”,“We’re Waiting for Your Call!”.

IMW isalso a wee b like the national anthem: it appeals to your sense of patriotism, it balloons out your bosom, it challenges you: “India Fights Back” proclaims the sub-heading, “Together we can do it”, insists Ilyasi staring seriously into space, “We can and we will make difference, ” he adds confidently. If that doesn’t make you don’t rush out with your magnifying glass looking for finger prints, you’re just a flop.