Television’s feeding frenzy

By the time you read this, the entire country will be agog with what the exit polls are saying with regard to the likely winners and losers of India’s mega general elections, the final results of which will be declared a couple of days later on June 4. This, after waiting for six insanely long weeks of polling. In my personal view, these exit polls are nothing more than a thinly-veiled excuse for our television news channels to draw in as many viewers as possible, and give the chattering classes something to pump fists and exercise their palms with endless high fives, depending on which party you are supporting. Not forgetting all the elbow bending involved in downing all manner of alcoholic beverages to celebrate possible victory or drown one’s sorrows at the prospect of crushing defeat. Those not so inclined towards wild revelry, will visit temples, mosques and churches to pay obeisance to their respective divinities to ensure favourable outcomes. In exceptional cases, top political leaders will themselves be anointed with divine status. There is a well-known Tamil saying, Thoonilum iruppar, thurumbilum iruppar, which loosely translates as God can be found in pillars and in the dust. Which, in the present context can also mean He can be spotted for a darshan (you should be so lucky) in 7 Lok Kalyan Marg née 7 Race Course Road in New Delhi.

Let me hasten to add that as these are only speculative exit polls, their accuracy factor, going by past records, could be anybody’s guess. Now that the IPL is behind us, welcome to the election entertainment. Lest I forget, let us not lose sight of all the advertising moolah that the channels rake in during these programmes. Speaking for myself, I would much rather wait for the actual results on June 4 that should effectively put me out of my misery. Then again, I tell a lie. I will be one of the millions of couch potatoes, glued to my set, taking vicarious pleasure watching all the garrulous and often hare-brained talking heads going at each other with a vengeance. Without exception, every news channel will claim credit for having read the tea leaves accurately.

That opening salvo is, in point of fact, a bit of a red herring. I have no intention of talking about the elections. I am fed up to the back teeth watching Rajdeep, Rahul (both of them, not counting the Gandhi variant), Arnab, Navika, Zaka et al, having a ball with politicians and psephologists, all of which serve only to muddy the waters. Then you have the YouTube gang with Karan, Barkha, Sreenivasan and others doing their bit to provide an alternative truth. If one channel decides to buttonhole self-appointed political analyst and potentially, the future Chief Minister of Bihar (reading between the lines) Prashant Kishore, then every single channel must jump on the bandwagon and interview PK. Who, in turn, says pretty much the same thing to all the channels, looking very smug and self-assured the while. A description that sits equally well on psephologist turned political pundit, Yogendra Yadav, who speaks in perpetual slow motion which appears to lend verisimilitude to his studied utterances.

Now look what I have gone and done. I have expended in excess of 500 words talking about a subject I do not wish to talk about! That is how insidious this subject is, but now I am going to change the topic. And that is to contemplate on the issue of why our television honchos latch on to one subject, critical as it may seem, and keep jabbering on about it for the next few days breathlessly. Take this underage fat cat boy in Pune, who had too much to drink, took his millionaire dad’s flash Porsche for a spin. Pressed on the accelerator, did not take his foot off the pedal and mowed down two young souls and sent them on their way to kingdom come.

 If that was not horrific enough, we had to listen to the whole cover-up attempt, how the delinquent was offered pizza and burger by the solicitous cops, how his dad was brought in for questioning, how even his grandfather tried to make their driver take the rap, how the doctors colluded with his mother in obfuscating blood reports – one excruciating detail after another. Now, far be it from me to suggest that this was not a deadly (pun intended) serious news item, but to dwell on it day in and day out, as if nothing else is happening in the world, is gross. A clear case of misplaced priorities. One of the anchors even conducted a serious interrogation with Pune’s chief of police. Was it his place to do so? Who can tell?

Just when we thought we were over the Pune fiasco another accident, this time in Uttar Pradesh, takes two more young lives on a two-wheeler. A prominent MP, Brij Bhushan Singh (who himself has been under a cloud for alleged misdemeanours with India’s women wrestlers) must now wrestle with the problem of how an SUV, part of his son’s cavalcade, careened off the roads leading to the tragedy. Whether the MP’s son Karan, a BJP candidate who stood for elections in place of his father, was in the convoy or not, is unclear. In the time-honoured fashion, he is sticking to stout denial. The case is ongoing, and the television channels are beside themselves.

Ditto the disastrous fires in a Rajkot gaming zone and a Delhi hospital resulting in the deaths of many, including children and new-born babies. They must be reported exhaustively but again, the media ought to do their bit, seek a modicum of balance and allow the law to take its own course. Whither sense of proportion? Withered, that’s what. Keep us posted, by all means, but must we be subjected 24 x7 to shrieky teenage correspondents, accompanied by a frenetic cameraman, breathlessly taking us through the minutiae of these incidents, hour upon hour, without any fresh insights to add? They call it a media trial. God knows it is extremely trying on the viewer. And as we have often witnessed before, after a few days, these cases disappear completely from our screens and we are back to Kejriwal and Maliwal. What is more, the alleged multiple rapist Prajwal Revanna, who had gone rogue, has just returned from his hideaway in Munich and walked straight into the loving arms of a posse of policemen and members of the Special Investigating Team. I can already see our television newshounds, dogging his footsteps from the Kempegowda International Airport all the way to his abode of confinement, hoping for an unintelligible and unintelligent sound bite.

Inevitably and contrarily, I change horses in mid-stream and get back to our elections. As we draw closer to the exit polls and the final results hove into view, our friends in the media will forget all about road rage and burning hospitals. Instead, there will be plenty of fire and brimstone with self-appointed experts crying themselves hoarse over the unfolding results, minute by painful minute. We have seen it all before.

For myself, I would much rather switch to the French Open, armed with a bag of popcorn or crisps and a tall glass of the frothy nectar, watching the artistry of Alcaraz, Sinner, Zverev and Djokovic. Not to mention Swiatek, Sabalenka, Rybakina and Gauff. And I shall blub into my beer at the ineffable sadness of Nadal’s first round exit. Finally, if Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami come down with a severe streptococcal infection and are unable to speak on the idiot box, that would be perfectly fine with me.