Hussain's Pain India's Gain

A section of the intelligentsia is troubled by M F Hussain's acceptance of Qatari citizenship, a situation supposedly aggravated by our government's disinterest to bring him back. They feel we have lost a great artist. Whether Hussain deserved the kind of backlash for his paintings, and whether the methods of the protesters were legitimate is not the point of this post. My point is rather pragmatic. What did we lose?

So Hussain will continue to paint from wherever he is, and if he is the master painter they proclaim him to be, he is sure to attract attention and awards and whatever it is that painters are honored with. With the threat of the so-called Hindu fundamentalists out of the window, he can confidently push his envelope and paint Gods, Goddesses, Demons, Angels, maybe even humans in whatever manner, and by the simple rule of probability, one of them is bound to hit the bullseye. Should that happen, our media will promptly claim credit highlighting his Indian association, for he learnt and practiced the art here. This is more than what can be said about certain other artistes in whose success we brazenly bask. The most recent instance being a website that has proclaimed that Desis have taken international TV by storm. Notwithstanding that "Desi" is generally used in derogatory sense, none of the actors featured in this list have ever lived or practiced in India, to the best of my knowledge. Its not too far fetched to imagine that the media will claim credit for a novelist, who on a flight from Shanghai to SF, happened to scratch his behind at the precise moment that the flight entered the Indian airspace, and went on to write a bestseller. If thats a stretch, what about the coverage of Amla's Gujju connections following his brilliant performance in the test series?

The way I see it, Hussain will now paint all he wants, and by extension, will come up that one odd monstrosity which will thrill the art world while we will sit back and rejoice that India has produced a master painter. What am I missing?

Waiting for Rann...

It is now proven that Rathore did commit the crime. Whether his conviction was severe enough is debatable, but it has caught media's imagination like never before, who have grasped this opportunity to project themselves as the only just and righteous institution in the country. They have promptly accused Rathore of torturing Ruchika's family, getting her expelled from school, and eventually forcing her to commit suicide. Should we have gone to war with Pak in the same decade, he would have been blamed for that as well.

That media overreacts is an acknowledged fact, but to so brazenly support one side and vilify the other is lunacy. Every development on the Ruchika case is accompanied by a grave photo of her to evoke maximum sympathy while Rathore is shown with a grin to convey his glee on getting away so easily on a crime for which he deserves to be hanged - if it were left to our media.

But then Rathore is at least a convict, but the media takes sides with the same gusto even against a victim. Sample these two ridiculously funny instances of media ethics in Mumbai Mirror (yeah, not the newspaper to search for ethics, but still...). I guess there is an unwritten rule to not disclose the names of rape victims or show their pics, and with good reason. First was the story of a woman in Kalyan who caught redhanded by her husband in their home, having a good time with a lover. To save her face, she cried rape, and the poor lover was arrested. The case came to trial, when she abruptly showed up to reveal the truth. Now, is there any confusion here as to identities of the criminal and the victim? The newspaper religiously blacked out lady's face and withheld her name, which was accompanied by the mug shot of her lover.

The second one is funnier. Two lovers go watch a movie and get cozy, I guess, in the theater. They even eat out at the restaurant after the movie, and then she remembers, oh he took advantage of me, and cries rape. The case goes on trial, and is thrown out. The story is reported, after faithfully changing the name of the woman, but the guy's name is as is.

The less said about their handling of serious matters the better. NDTV chose have a debate on US' decision to put nationals of 15 countries under additional checks. Some idiot at NDTV thought this was racial profiling and wasted no time in inviting a couple of experts to discuss the matter, one of which was Mani Shankar Aiyer. I dont care much for Mr. Aiyer, but I am totally with him when he started by saying that the move by the US is not racial profiling at all, and that NDTV should have done well to get a security expert who can comment on whether racial profiling is effective in averting terror strikes.

I cant wait for RGV's Rann. I hope he hits them really hard with this one. I lick my lips imaging scenes of media nincompoops protesting that the Rann shows them in bad light. Go RGV!

Farce India

Force India's fortunes have undergone a dramatic turnaround in the last two races, and our media has spared no effort to shove this piece of trivia onto our face. I fail to understand why this is a matter of notional, let alone national, importance.

The team has been part of the F1 scene for years under various names. The owners, unhappy with its performance, found a sucker in Mr. Mallya. Ever the publicity seeker, he promptly made much noise and named it Force India, which actually reminds of the old Air India joke. We all know how well his decision to start an airline as a marketing campaign for liquor brands is working out. What makes us think he will do any better with an F1 team? Anyway, except for Mr. Mallya, nothing in the team is remotely Indian. Not the engine, not the crew and definitely not the drivers. Mr. Mallya is not even the full owner although he has pulled off the brilliant gimmick of attaching our nation's name to the team.

So, it irks me to no end when he makes statements such as "Force India carries the hopes of a billion people." The words that come to my mind are too strong to mention here. I doubt if any self-respecting F1 fan is actually cheering for Force India. The ones doing the cheering are either in the media or are people just content with "India" and some variation of "victory" being used in the same sentence. (I shouldn't blame the second group for those are indeed rare occasions.)

Far from protesting the embarrassing reference to our country – until recently, the drivers were finishing in double digit positions and were engaged in duel to not finish last - we have found cause for celebration.

Where's the media when you need them?

The flurry of media channels has ensured that even a fart by a politician or celebrity would not go unnoticed. Yet, they are nowhere when we need them the most. It has been coming down hard since last night here in Mumbai. When I woke up this morning, I was positive that several areas would be waterlogged. Adding to this, a metro pillar collapsed near Sakinaka, arguably the busiest traffic junction in Mumbai. I scanned the news channels for updates, but except TV9, no channel was even running a ticker about the rains. There was no source of getting a real-time update on the situation. The authorities were mum on what citizens are supposed to do, but thats typical. Most Mumbaikars know enough about the rains and chose to stay home I think. Thats what I did too based on my past experience here!

I am most appalled at the state of the news websites. It is incredibly easy to update a website and post live notes as the news pours in. But none of the websites had any mention of the rains until 10AM. All of them waited until noon and posted "articles". By then, everyone that cared about the rains knew about them. The less said about the Mumbai traffic police website the better. Its not that these websites cant do live coverage - they do it with budgets, bomb blasts etc. I have no idea why they dont do it on occasions such as these.

I wish we had a website that posts minute-by-minute updates on situations such as these. Maybe I could start one.