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Magazine
The stamp of DD
SEVANTI NINAN
More TV towers ... but the programming still needs to be improved.
WHEN Doordarshan (DD) waded blithely into the awards business last fortnight, it left its goofy government footprints all over the production. The invitation arrived just the evening before, one of the jurors sulked and stayed away because he was told at the very last minute, and considered that rather graceless. Inside the auditorium many seats were going a-begging, as was the case with the National Film Awards function this year as well. And all around me were seated DD employees, one of whom helpfully said that he had been ordered to attend.
In fairness to them it wasn't meant to be much more than an in-house event. Said its news release, "Doordarshan Annual Awards have been conceived to bring out the best among the staff working in the organisation. It is being seen as an incentive to promote creativity in Public Service Broadcasting that plays such a vital role in informing, educating and entertaining the citizens of the society". The Vice-President was at hand to remind us that "When the history of broadcasting is written, Doordarshan will doubtless occupy pride of place." Doubtless. "The Indian people and Doordarshan have developed emotional bonding," he added. Indeed we have. The more you see of it, the more you want to weep.
The first and most durable assault that evening was on one's eardrums. Tom Alter boomed and cracked PJs, and at the drop of a hat singers would burst into deafening song. Old film songs. The second assault was on one's sense of history. Everybody from Minister Sushma Swaraj downwards referred to them as the first Doordarshan Annual Awards. It wasn't. There have been, in the past 40 years, occasional forays into institutionalising such awards, efforts which then fell by the wayside. The handouts distributed also cheerfully said on one of the sheets listing``points made by CEO, Prasar Bharati in his address'' that Doordarshan was set up in 1959. It wasn't. It was set up in 1976, until then TV had remained a wing of All India Radio. TV came to India in 1959. Since the CEO's address did not come until well into the four hours plus function, I don't know if he actually made that bloomer when he spoke. I was told though that he was so distraught at the way the function was going that he forgot to present one of the awards.
Those who watched the awards on TV noticed that there was one mike for two anchors which they tugged back and forth among themselves. Nobody knew through those four hours who the chirpy woman anchor was. Mrs Swaraj got plenty of exercise: the way the function was conceived she kept having to go onstage and come down again. And not surprisingly the awardees were the least conspicuous. Not only did they dispense with nominees, they also dispensed with showing footage of the programmes being awarded. Apparently on the televised version they did show some. But they dispensed with editing. The telecast was almost as long as the original show and function.
Every minister, bureaucrat and Prasar Bharati eminence who presented an award made a speech. Alas, nobody asked the winners of the awards for the best TV show, or the best tele-film, or the most innovative programme or the best music programme, or the best children's programme to make acceptance speeches.
And then there was the show itself, conceived of as a depiction of the various Rasas, the Shant Ras, the Vatsalaya Ras, the Vibhatsa Ras and so on. There was a lot of aimless and not particularly aesthetic traipsing around on stage. The Bhayanak Ras was an unintentionally comic throwback to the horror shows on TV. Performers ran up and down, singers belted out numbers, and some of us squirmed.
Doordarshan has abandoned the classical arts, as its dropping of the national programmes of music and dance demonstrates. Is there nobody left in the organisation and the ministry who can commandeer taste, talent, and organisational ability for a special occasion? Must we be forced to tune in to the Golden Era reruns on the Metro Channel to discover what our State broadcaster is capable of ?
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There is a difference between acting caustic and being congenitally caustic. Neena Gupta is a pretty woman and a gifted actress. Famously cutting she is not. She looks beautiful and tries hard to be cold and offensive in her role as anchor for the Indian version of "The Weakest Link". But she simply does not intimidate the contenders to the point where asking to be on the show is an act of masochism. That is what the original show is about. Anne Robinson, the British woman who created the role of a cutting host is not an actress. She is a journalist who spent years writing ferocious columns in a variety of British tabloid newspapers. She also ran an aggressive consumer programme on the BBC called "Watchdog" for six years. Her bite is congenital, Gupta's is not. Giving newspaper interviews in the run up to the launch of the show describing how hard she is working on her comebacks and putdowns doesn't help either.
"Kamzor Kadi Kaun" is a game show with prize money like "Kaun Banega Crorepati", but it lacks the magnetism of both that show and its Indian anchor Amitabh Bachchan. The tension does not built up in quite the same way because the pace is more fleeting.
Nor do the lighting and close ups build human interest. There is too much blue all over. Worth watching? Not if you have more cheering options on the other channels. Besides, Star Plus's timing in bringing on this show might just be a bit off. The year- end wisdom in the global media industry is that given the post-September 11 mood, audiences are increasingly turning away from reality based programming and opting for fantasy and fiction. Tuesdays, 9 p.m., Star Plus.
E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com
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