I wonder if I can refuse to inherit the world..
There was a time not so long ago when Television and Newspapers were serious stuff. People looked up to them as means of knowledge. It was for the educated, not the literate. Nothing, about it, was idiot business. Not so any more. Welcome to the era of shameless, in your face voyeurism.We see it happening everywhere.
Differentiation is good, especially when you have a hundred odd channels beamed to you with the help of colossal technology sitting some 36,000 miles above the planet earth. Its called the satellite (INSAT or whatever). But one look at all the channels and you wonder whats the freaking point. They're all the same. You have dimwits dancing when thats not their business (and other far bigger dim wits rushing to copy them, fearing they might run out of business if they dont), some morons singing, someone being made a fool of, some ugly woman being given a makeover to become the next Bipasha Basu, a bunch of squeaky teenagers riding bikes to nowhere, for no rhyme or reason. And all the time there are these extremely irritating "hosts" to these shows who keep asking them 'how they feel?'. They're not supposed to be there in the first place, so how would they feel? Like stupid I'm guessing. But then you never know, may be they are not even wise enough to realise the magnanimity of they cruelty they're inflicting on us in the first place. In that case they'd feel first class. Welcome to the era of "reality tv". All TV is reality. Even news is not spared. What makes news has degraded to such shocking levels, its every man's 5 minutes claim to fame. Be it the Professor whose wife ran away with her neighbor, or the obscure daughter of a South Indian celebrity who made headlines by marrying some guy in defiance. The point is: Who cares? And the answer is scarier. Everybody. Thats who. No channel, be it news or otherwise can hope to survive without this carcass. Its a generation that feeds on others lives. Why? Perhaps because their own lives are so empty that everyone hopes they find preoccupation with the trivia of others lives. Magnanimity isnt important anymore. It doesnt have to touch your life or be the budget to make news anymore. It doesnt have to be anything. Its twisted irony, isnt it, that Yedyurappa's interest in numerology and his change of name makes headlines in a godforsaken popular newspaper (you should guess which, it wouldnt take an einstien to do that), but the first policy he signed we have no clue about. Incidentally its about the revision of the Devanahalli project deadline! And thats going to affect a lot of us.
Newspapers are another miserly tragedy. The page 3 supplement is bulkier than the daily. Sports section carries stories about imminent breakups and infidelity. Come again? How the hell is that a sport!! Because it involves a sports player. And we'll have to make our peace with that. There are ads everywhere. Our leading daily is 22 pages of page 3! Lo behold Times of India. It reports news by calling Musharraf's coup 'Mushy's Outing' and posts dry jokes about him being called son of a whatever. Who's laughing? Jug Suraiya even did a half page article on "bad language history". When Liz Hurley (the third rate mediocre actress whose only claim to fame are her safety pin costume and a dumb ass husband) got married, it made headlines. So did the Beckham's vacation plan.
What kind of a generation are we heading into? Will the insignificant mooch all thats big and important and groundbreaking into nothingness? Will lies, mediocrity and incompetence rob technology, science and sheer brilliance of its space in a world where things move at a dizzying pace. Will we be a generation of escapists who try to forget our failures in others' and ignore acknowledging things that move the world but seldom win recognition? Will it be an era of forgotten brilliance and glorified failures?
4 comments:
wow!!! i can see some really strong opinions and views abt the way things are around you... as ppl popularly put in "no offense meant" and "with all due respect to you" - i guess the fact that India gives u so much freedom of thought and of speech that a newspaper readily puts in wat they think the common man would feed on and the same goes true for the television...
wel i guess, its the same reason you and I have this blog where we can openly criticize things and knowing or not knowing how many would actually bother reading wat we write or even care abt it...
some things evolve with time or rather everything evolves with time... so i guess the same holds true for the media too... with the consumer wanting more things and increase in the supply, yes its quite a matter or the survival of the fittest. So do whatever it takes for you to do it.
And well, whoever is forcing anyone to watch the "crappy" news or read Page 3. Its for a MASS AUDIENCE, read the section that suits you the most and ignore wat doesnt, its not meant for you...
At the end of the day, its a free "democratic" world!!!
@ anvita: That is a typical dry,should i say unimaginative perspective to an era we are living in. See, every generation has a single factor that eclipses all else and is its most difining aspect. The 17th century belonged to industrial revolution, the 18th to independance of thought and revolutionary thinking. It was renassaince of political thought and apartheid underway. To say that it would have been the success otherwise if people didnt care about what they thought or how they wrote would not only be amateurish, it would be foolish. So yes, everything we make that touches people or influences thought process should exersice restraint and thought. If what you say should be true then we should do away with censorship entirely assuming kids would leave things not meant for them alone and nothing would be classified for a stratum of the society. And I must tell you, it actually does.
As for your saying "do whatever it takes", I strongly disagree, because thats a pathetic case of ends justifying means, which is the biggest folly we could ever make.
As for who "bothers to read what I write", :D , well well.. I'd like to quote a Randian line here, at the risk of sounding lofty, pardon the usage but it gets my point across perfectly " The goal of my writing is to project a man as an ideal human being. Not as the man he is but the man he could be." So I am not commenting on journalism as it is today but as it could be, and should be. And journalism has a huge role to play anywhere. I mean, havent you heard of Naom Chomsky, Michael Moore, Al Gore or any other intellectual writers and what their strength can be. Read them, perhaps you'll see my point then. Frankly I dont see yours. Most welcome to debate then.
You should refuse and you will inherit The Difference if you wish to. I appreciate your point of view. hope you get to meet lot more people with your thoughts. may be it will make a difference tomorrow. I would nt totally condemn journalism today but still, yes, I definetly don't want to know why Britney Spears broke off with her fourth boyfriend. keep writing. . .
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