Penblunt & Hogwash

Snakepit and the charmer

PENBLUNT

It was a Wow! Week for the electronic media: so much to show from just one incident, so much to scream at Pakistan, so much controversy at so little cost (not to human lives… for if humans do not kill humans, what will the TV live on); rather, I am referring to the fact that all the action was located either in Delhi or in nearby Panipat… less transportation cost, fewer reporters covering the entire gamut of “issues”, one OB van to suffice….

And then, of course, as the bilateral trauma seemed to be getting exhausted, with all the juice in the lime squeezed out, there came the stunning and stunningly vulgar “Israel mein saanp se maalish! Porn on mainstream.

Whoever it is, Paki or Hindu bigots, who did the Samjhauta Express thing must have been God to the media.

The channels had gone dry… not a single person committed suicide with advance notice to the media, which could hang out with the cameras hoping the man would jump… and cop it.

Sense prevailed in the turban and Dr Singh did not sing the Sonia song and Mulayam was not sacked.

There was no women’s tennis worth the greedy eyeballs (Justice Hidayatullah had used the term “prurient” in dismissing the obscenity charges against the Bengali novel “Bibar”).

What the F, man!

Then came the great news… SOS has been heard… two compartments of the train had been bombed and the train (as shown in TV graphics, repeatedly, monotonously repeatedly) was travelling like the old Bollywood hit, the “Burning Train”, with no Dharmendra to save the guys.

Just imagine… midnight adrenalin rush, and then, because no sane person would have seen it when the cameras started rolling, the next day all day it remained Breaking News on all the channels.

Then came the Pakistani Foreign minister and there broke out the issue of a joint investigation. And a famous TV channel-head did an exclusive in which one brilliant question asked to the minister was, did he think Pakistan has not done enough to stop terrorism?

Genius

Of course, the question was asked thrice; the first time (original query); then, in the guise of evasion (“But Minister, you have not answered my original question… do you think Pakistan has not done enough…) and finally, the third time after some other questions were answered… the typical sleuth’s cross-questioning, repeating the question once it had been forgotten… just a trap for the guy to make a mistake.

We expected, of course, that the honourable Pakistani minister would throw up his lucrative job and say, “Of course we have not done nothing to stop terrorism…. Dawoodd is still the house guest of Prez Musharraf, don’t you know?”

The speculations continued, whether it was a Hindu bigot or an Islamic one from across the border. And speculation is a national habit, a fundamental birth right of TV journos.

India said they had found a link in Pakistan.

Pakistani minister said bilaterals have never been so rosy, which was bad news and never played up in the media… same reason: if an Indo-Pak honeymoon takes off, TV will lose its rooftop and Bollywood its favourite damning theme: ISI, the ultimate evergreenback villain, the mantra for jingle bells in the box office.

Not a single channel took up the issue of how Maoists in Nepal were selling arms cheap to people across the border; none except one English channel and no prizes for guessing.

No channel reported another doddering old parent ousted from the son’s marital household.

No feature on farmers committing suicide in West Bengal. No report on the river Pagla veering off into Bangladesh and threatening the Calcutta Port with clear extinction

But why do you need all that when there is “Israel mein saanp se maalish”?

It was a coldish midweek day and the sun was in mourning – upset that the clouds were not letting it shine in the era of global warming.

I reached the Press Club and sat down with vodka, trying to warm up a bit. I could have spared the pocket. Hot stuff had been cooked already.

Across me at the far end of the main hall, on the giant TV screen I saw something that I could not believe… a snake slithering over the chest, alabaster breasts (in black brassier), belly button, navel of a sexy woman.

“Israel mein saanp se maalish”, read the caption and the news reader went on how this unique massage was being given in Israel.

For a split second I was jealous of the snakes. Then the camera shifted to the woman’s white legs (black undergarment), and snake slid down the legs, down on the thigh, down, down….

Eeks!

And like the graphics of the Burning Train, just those vulgar shots were repeated thrice in a news item of one minute…. And the news was being shown since morning, because a housewife I spoke to said, “Oh, I have seen it.”

Wake up, Mr Dasmunshi, this is not just a foreign entertainment channel, this is real desi stuff, Minister!