Journalism – News = Reality TV?

There was a time when I used to be awestruck by the efficiency of the TV news journalists covering news about everything under the sky. I used to stare at the screen and mutter “man these guys are good!” This was a long time ago, when seeds of 24 hour news channels were beginning to sprout on a barren range of frequencies. The appreciation of these channels and the shows they aired started deteriorating the moment I saw a late night news item in a news channel which covered the attack of a chudail (witch) in a local public school. This reminds me of an episode of my college life and a rather amusing timepass that we had.

There were many B-grade crime/detective magazines available that had mastered the art of linguistics at par with Godess Saraswathi (Hindu Goddess of knowledge). These magazines came into prominence when they published leaked pictures of some girls having fun in their hostel rooms in a very famous college in Cochin. The magazines used to publish stories of missionaries/swamis having illicit affairs, unsolved crimes, missing people etc. What attracted us guys to these magazines was their ready availability, minimal cost and to top it all semi naked pictures of women ranging from heroines to pot bellied aunties. However, once the pictures on the magazines were ogled at, our attention went into the elaborate wordings in the magazines. To keep the government from banning these magazines, the pictures were censored by strategically placed black bars and the stories were narrated in sentences that hid chee chee words in clever double meaning sentences.

The most entertaining read of the entire magazine would be an unsolved crime being autopsied and dissected to itsy bitsy pieces. Say a person, mostly innocentvillagebabe02, was missing or killed by either a kaamaveriyan (sex maniac) neighbour or a vithukaala (bull used for breeding) missionary/swami. Based on the relevancy of the characters in the stories the article used to have pictures of where they used to have their chaaya and parippuvada (tea and lentil fritters), the road they used to tread to go to college/school/bath/do potty etc. These articles were so damn funny that we used to sit together, read the magazine and laugh our brains out. I was missing out on these stupid timepasses till I saw news programmes being aired that seemed vaguely similar to the way the articles were presented in the magazines.

This brings us back to the story of the chudail that send jitters down the spine of hapless gaaon ki chorees (village girls) when they had a tough exam to crack. This news piece was aired in the “best Hindi news channel” and was done with so much enthusiasm that I sat down and watched the entire coverage for a whole 60 minutes. They had intricate details about the chudail with video clips of a young girl babbling stuff like red saree, daanth (teeth), khoon (blood) etc. The girl said that the chudail scared her and said some unparliamentary stuff which she refused to tell the camera person. At this point I was laughing so damn hard that I toppled the can of beer that I was drinking. I was thinking, this should inspire the Ramsay brothers to come up with a movie that has a chudail in red saree, fake jumbo canines and chewed bubblegum spat all over her face. Unfortunately, it seems no one but me was crazy enough to sit through the whole 60 minutes and watch the journalist trying to play Sherlock and the local village guide playing Watson.

This was the beginning. Later on I started surfing news channels after 11 pm daily to find numerous such programs, where such dare-devil journalists risked their lives and wives to come up with great stories about paranormal activities affecting the otherwise normal lives of poor villagers. I once saw a show where the journalist hid behind a bush near an old haveli at 12 midnight under the cover of the harsh spotlight shone on him by the cameraman/men to see if ghosts came out of the haveli. I salute the courage of these men who risked their lives to give us fully lit shots of local bushes near the haveli in the middle of the night. It even had Blair witch project style clips where the journo crept towards the haveli, still gloriously lit by the spotlight to get a better look at the ghosts of the dilapidated building. Other than the fact that everyone and their mothers saw the blue underwear of the journo flashing under the spotlight when he was crawling in the bushes on national television, the scariest thing about crawling in bushes is the fact that in rural areas, such bushes are places where people go to do their business with a lotta (small pot) of water.

If that does not scare you, you have to send your resume to “~” (You will understand if you are quick enough). The ghost stories soon turned into broke love affairs, cheating house wives, miracles of bad photoshop etc.

“Hamara khullasa. Do sar waala aadmi. Kya aap vishvaas kar sakte hain kudrat ka ye karishma? Kya hamare scientist logon se pehle cloning jaanti thee prithvi maa? Aise daravne tasveer jo aapke jigar mein ek kaamp jaga degi.”

Translation:

“Our scoop. A man with two heads. Can you believe this miracle of nature? Did mother earth know cloning before our scientists? Such horrifying pictures that will rouse a shiver in your heart”

After this garbage they show a badly photoshopped image of some local villager + a cow + a deer and you bend down and puke.

The editors of the magazines were talented enough to invent stories with so much intrigue and twists that you feel really amused after reading them and sometimes you might even start believing that in every ashram and convent nothing holy happens most of the times. The on screen counterparts to such magazines, although subtle in the content, were not convincing enough and my roommate and I often wondered if anyone could believe such idiotic stories in the first place.

One evening after office when we all sat down for chai and chatter, a supervisor from a rural village of Punjab who we all lovingly called khotiya (donkey in Punjabi) asked me

“Sirjee!!! Aapne kal TV me dekha? Saamp ka sar wala ek ladki ke bare mein news tha! Dekhke to mera hosh ud gaya!”

Translation:

Sir!!! Did you see the TV yesterday? They showed a girl with a snakes head in the news! It blew my mind!

After a whole minute and half of dumbfounded silence which followed by thundering laughter, which left poor khothiya perplexed, I realised that such programs were made for a target audience and not for sarcastic sceptics like me. However, this has not stopped me from watching such shows because its not everyday that a journalist flashes his blue colour “SINDHU” underwear in search of ghosts from underworld.

Do start laughing. This is reality TV.

~ by mangonel on October 6, 2008.