So many bugs

If you were a visiting Martian, belonging moreover to an obscure, insular tribe, who was somehow deposited in front of a television screen in India, what do you suppose you would make of this country's predominant preoccupations — going by its advertising images?

Within a couple of days you would be convinced that Earth was infested by these rabid, lethal creatures known as ‘keetanu’. You would note with trepidation that these lurk everywhere on the human person — in their teeth, on their skin, clothes and everything they touch. By and by you would realise that these are impossible to destroy, but you would understand also that this was one entity Earthlings must combat at all costs, or die. If you were a suggestible sort of Martian, you would soon find yourself avoiding contact with anything — doorknobs, newspapers, currency notes — for fear that you too could die from such deadly infection. You would have growing regard for a range of products: soap, toothpaste, deodorant, and a range of domestic cleaning liquid. You would see again and again the image of a magnifying glass that would show you precisely how well these products were working: a circle full of germs magically wiped clean leaving only one or two insignificant crawlies, one perhaps skulking so close to the edge as to appear practically invisible.

I, of course, am an Earthling. As children, we held these ‘keetanu’ in contempt. During a growing up phase when I fancied myself particularly hardy, I remember telling my sister that the best way to deal with a bleeding scraped knee was to rub a little mud on it to stem the flow. She did, and she lives, I assure you, to tell the tale to any sympathetic audience likely to cast dark looks at her heartless older sister. But the point is: Indians didn’t use to be this afraid of germs and bacteria. We knew that resistance was superior to non-contamination. That bacteria aren’t vile creatures that need to be warded off with vats of antiseptic. We learnt that the human body is an assemblage of microbiota in numbers that outstrip human cells ten times over. And this, we must now remind ourselves, is normal. Normal.

A few years ago, during the annual year-end NRI season, we had a few kids over. They went out to explore the garden and the adults sat down to conversation — only to have the kids rush in again in a flurry of alarm and disgust. Eeeks and ewwws were uttered and we heard complaints of “so many bugs”. An investigation revealed ants, grasshoppers and other innocuous fauna. First-world kids! We shook our heads then, but is the attitude so different from ours now? By and large, this fear of old-fashioned dirt has percolated to us. Children even two decades ago roamed more than they do now, played more robustly than they tend to do today. Parents are more protective — leashes are tighter and yes, there’s a keener eye kept on fingernails. Do children these days still collect ladybugs in matchboxes or examine frogs?

And all these arguments against the contaminants of the world would all be a little more sympathy inducing if the concern were motivated by pure love. A parent’s job is by necessity prone to anxiety and mothers are notoriously easy to guilt-trip. But you have to think — because soon after an advertisement has told you your child could fall ill if he didn’t wash his hands obsessively, it’ll usually let drop a more deadly fear: perhaps he will have to miss school. Oh the horror! Fall behind on lessons, slip down the ranks and be less of a success in standard four? Unthinkable. And so it comes about that your average mother is stepping out this minute to stock up on antiseptics, handwashes and bacteria-repelling toothpastes. While she’s at it, she should pick up a consignment of energy drinks that aid memory, keep up energy for school, athletics, violin lessons as well as keep the lad peppy through the extra tuition.

No more the small screen

About to embark on Kaun Banega Crorepati (4), Amitabh Bachchan recently reminisced on his blog about how it was back in 2000. When he first decided to do television, those in charge of guarding his brand were highly doubtful. For a man who ruled the silver screen to be cramped into small box screens, to lose mystique and be delivered straight into distracted drawing rooms was seen as a dilution of his persona.

But Bachchan persisted — it was an honourable way to begin to pay off the pile of debts he had incurred in the debacle that was ABCL. To the participants who came hoping to win a tidy sum of money, this was even more of a connect with the man who sat opposite them; he too was there to make money — a necessity and a preoccupation that binds all of poor and middle class India. So when Amitabh Bachchan asks someone on the hot seat: “Kya maayne rakhtein hai ye paise aapke liye? What does this money mean to you?”, the query is significant. It adds to that mental profile we Indians assemble for everyone we meet. It is a question that everyone is sympathetic to; and the answer, no matter how similar, is invariably of interest.

Bachchan’s return to television ten years later sees a vastly different picture. Bollywood wouldn’t touch TV with a pole then, but they love it now. It is impossible to flip channels on primetime weekends without shuffling on star dust. Akshay Kumar is a sure shot these days, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan smiled graciously on Masterchef last week even as she fenced gingerly with Karan Johar. In recent years, Bachchan Jr, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Farah Khan, Priyanka Chopra have all hosted television shows, and everyone in Bollywood worth anything at all has trooped through television studios. A fact that tells us, better than reams of statistics ever could, how powerful the small box has become.

Talk shows are one aspect, but there is the other tiresome matter of promotions. Singing contests, comedy, dance and sundry talent contests... nothing is spared from the relentless onslaught of new movie releases. Stars, directors and associated celebrities appear on these platforms. For the talent show, it presumably keeps the interest alive; for the movie, it is an easy audience, captive, gagged and bound. Win-win, as they say.

The biggest victims of this parade of self-serving guests, to my mind, are the judges of musical contests. Over the years, these have been notorious for attention-seeking gimmicks, manufactured conflicts... generally behaviour known in TV circles as ‘khaaoing’ footage. For example: a contestant performs well. Instead of a measured critique, he or she is more likely to encounter a judge who leaps out of his chair, bounds up on stage to bestow hugs, blessings and fulsome praise, all under the red eye of the camera. Camerapersons have learnt the hard way not to compose judges in tight frames, for they are apt to rear up without notice, leaving the vision mixer with disconcerting visuals of their midriffs if everyone isn’t sharp enough.

Now this scenario has become rather compromised by the Bollywood publicity machine. Hardly a week goes by without some promotion, and our judges must now suffer to play host to a series of celebs even more intent on consuming valuable air-time. For the viewer, of course, this is extremely fatiguing; quality music has long vanished and it is just one dose of insincere hype after the other.

But promotions aren’t limited to reality TV — they sometimes spill over into soaps as well. Salman Khan as Chulbul Pandey was woven (very, very badly!) into the script of Laagi Tujhse Lagan and Akshay Kumar dropped into the home of the Kashyaps of Sasural Genda Phool to sell Khatta Meetha. Much as we acknowledge the compulsions of the business, this is distressing. At least the soaps — television at its purest — may be spared the Bollywood infestation.