News bulletins and pimples have one thing in common. We all try to avoid them!
The other day, I just happened to ask one of my friend what his father did for a living. “You would not believe it, but when my father starts speaking, everyone sits up and pays attention,” he said.
“Is he a politician?” I enquired. “No he is a news reader with Doordarshan., ” he said with a hint of pride in his voice.
Little did he know that today news bulletins are not the much sought after packages they once used to be. In fact, the news slots are avoided by prudent surfers of the TV channels. Care is taken to memorise the time slots of the various channels, lest they end up witnessing the insipid performances.
News is a welcome break for the glamour bitten viewers, not because they get to know the recent happenings but because they can switch off their TV sets and rest their overstrained eyes. Afterall, nobody has time enough to waste on non-glamourous presentations where decently dressed (or should I say well covered) men and women stage the show.
“Its a drag, eh!” A collegian said on being asked about his lack of interest in news bulletins. “News, which is now considered as Non-Entertaining Wasteful Show is in for bad days if watching them does not become a fad very soon,” he added with a you-are-stupider-than-me look on his face. Probably he thought I was a newsman.
A smart guess is that the viewship might pickup if they start showing film clippings in between. Maybe a make-your-own-facepack sort of thing for the mothers and tit-bits about Brooke Shields and Mata Hari for the fathers will bring in some interest.
Karl Marx once said: Follow your own bent, no matter what people say. Quite possible that Marx got his inspiration from we Indians. Have we not held our own against many advices?
Who says we are not smart enough to envisage our own Titanic filiming near the Bombay High. Afterall, glamour is our lifeblood and films our bloodbanks!