Lasting Impressions!

Anna Hazare? Yes, the name rings a bell. No this post is not about him .But where is he now? We’ll know when Arnab or Rajdeep decide to tell us! We think what they make us think.
No doubt, then that the onslaught of pixels in my living room molds my opinion. Or why else would the politicians be in a race to own TV channels? Kalaingar, Jaya, Sun, Sakshi, Mega, Kairali, Maurya, are all TV channels owned by neta-log. Not merely to run down rivals, but to make us think what they want us to think. That Kalaingar TV was the cause of DMKs doom is another matter. They got caught. Bad luck!

Again, I am least interested in British royalty and their escapades, yet my idiot box has been screaming that Kate-William marriage is the biggest wedding of the century watched by two billion viewers. After repeated enticements I ended up watching the live telecast.

Going by the spirit of the times, if pixels are opinion makers for adults then they are the new baby sitters for kids.

Moms might be delighted that their fussy eaters eat almost anything when glued to the small screen. My friend is happy sitting in her office, thinking that her ten-year-old is watching cartoons at home. Instead the boy was hooked to Axe Your Ex and Emotional Atyachaar. She is still happy, “At least porn to nahin dekhta na?”

This week while watching a dance based reality show I was impressed by the dancing abilities of a boy and a girl performing salsa. A moment later I cringed when the host suggestively asked the seven-year-old boy, “Did you enjoy dancing with your partner? Mazza aaya?” The host went on to poke the kid about the close encounter of dancing with a young girl. Since millions of kids were watching the show, was it essential to rub sexual innuendos on a child?

Any mother will avoid taking her children for a Hashmi starrer. But what if he is on TV? The very same day I happened to catch a glimpse of a scene from Tumsa Nahin Dekha on television where a pretty girl at a bus-stop catches Emraan Hashmi’s fancy. He goes right ahead and smooches the girl in full public glare. No marks for guessing that the girl falls for her tormentor a few reels later.

If such brazen acts can get you a girl, what was to stop Ram Singh, a tailor in a jeans factory? An emboldened Ram Singh started stalking a Delhi University student Radhika Tanwar. The song playing in his head is ‘thoda cheekhegi thoda chillayegi, dil kehta hai ek din haseena maan jayegi.’ He stalked the girl for weeks and finally accosted her. The girl ignored him. Three days later Ram Singh killed her point-blank.

As sensible adults we know that in cinema a rich pretty lass might fall for a taxi-driver  but in reality they hunt for tycoons, and blue bloods. Would Ms Carat Shetty have given a second look if Mr Kundra was a government officer? In real life, actresses stalk the ‘Sons of Good Times'. And when he falls on bad times, they drop him like a hot potato.

One can’t blame the screen for all the evils of our society. Smoking is banned in movies and yet one in five teens is puffing away. Who can explain that?
Since television has an uninhibited entry in our living rooms as a baby sitter and as an opinion maker, it has far greater responsibility than the big screen.