Penblunt & Hogwash

Stung Bollywood bare dares

Penblunt

That was an amazing sting, the one in which the Indian Hindi language news channel Aaj Tak exposed the Bollywood topcats and their underworld links.

I risk the chance of this blog being terminated forthwith, as my friend Pinaki and “owner” of this blog, just informed me that to his mind, there was nothing newsworthy in it, whereas I am saying it was amazing.

However, there’s always that ubiquitous disclaimer from publishers: “The views expressed in the Penblunt column are not necessarily those of the management of this blog.”

Anyway, this is why I thought it was amazing.

First, the perspective: news has gone out of Hindi news channels and that is being accepted by all and sundry excepting one channel, which is notorious for showing sex-violence-ghosts-demented humans as snake-gods-monkey-men-more-ex-violence… and so forth.

Those channels say whatever trash people want to watch is news; which can be interpreted as “anything that is not news elsewhere is news in Our Channel”.

But leave them to their distorted brains and ruined bank accounts (revenues are not coming in, so what if eyeballs are).

We are talking about some of the more newsy Hindi news channels, and their editors are lamenting that there is hardly news in news channels’

Which is why a smart young lady opened another Hindi news channel and made its mission statement: “Bringing Back News” on her Hindi news channel.

Given that fact, it is easy to understand, I guess, that these channels would still need to survive and the only way they can get their meaningless existence felt is by way of storm-raising stings.

A sting operation, as we understand in this flourishing democracy, is the democratic right of TV channels to send their half-trained and semi-educated young and overzealous reporters to invade anyone’s space with hidden cameras, lure the person / s with various stories and incentives to speak their minds and then flash out the whole thing on their respective channels.

The media is measured in terms of TRP (television rating points) by TAM. I shall apply the SLIP of Sting Level of Injury Point by PB (very clearly my own, or Penblunt standard, as there is no rating system for stings so far, but only for the stingers).

It is simply, the impact of a sting is the level of injury it causes, and by that standard, the Aaj Tak sting was 8.

It was not biased to any one star. It tried its best to show clearly the faces, and the accusation of doctoring the tapes did not cross my mind.

It gave the clearest audio and visual in any sting I have seen in Indian television so far.

It did itself some credit by ‘stinging’ Shah Rukh Khan and coming out with nothing to hold him down, and yet showed that he was clean, because normally in stings, if there is no scandal, it is not a sting at all.

So given the fact that stings are apologies for news anyway (everyone always knew many stars were dirty), the quality of the sting itself was good.

But that is not all. Look at what Aaj Tak had set out to achieve.

The news director of the channel had said sometime early this year that in the over-crowded news TV market in India (30+ channels so far!), the impact of even the most socially relevant and meaningful stings is little.

Thus it is after the stings on Gujarat communal riots and Uttar Pradesh police as hired killers, Aaj Tak decided to do a sting that would put it way past any channel, because it is stinging Bollywood and some of the most loved names in the firmament.

That was a master stroke.

It opens up a huge question in the minds of the common cinegoer: most films from India are about the underworld. So next time a cinegoer may well ask, why should one watch a film by such and such a star who is shown as fighting the criminals is actually taken money from them?

I suspect Pinaki will say: Huh, the cinegoer does not have such scruples.

May be not… as a grassroots man, who knows the common man better than Pinaki!

But even if that were true, Aaj Tak has done two things: it has shown a sting that is superbly done and close to the hearts of the people. And it has virtually ended the sting market, as beyond Bollywood, there is nothing that would interest a common viewer more by way of stings.

Gujarat riots and the government’s direct hand in it has been exposed, police-as-contract-killers has been exposed, a Godman as a sex maniac running a destitute children’s home and abusing those very kids has been exposed.

And nothing shocked them, the common man.

Aaj Tak news director had another worry arising out of the overcrowded Hindi news channel market is that even the strongest sting does not retain its impact beyond a day or two.

Now it is Bollywood that has been stung.

Now, the Ultimate is now over.

Therefore, is the worry: quo vadis, Hindi news?