The Fourth(falling) Estate

When I switched on the TV and was flipping through the umpteen television channels on the platter, I was necked out on seeing the amount of media hype on the wedding of a former miss world and the current miss plastic face with the son of, undoubtedly the Superstar of Bollywood. What I did not understand is that why so much importance is being to this particular wedding .Thousands of weddings take place everyday, but rarely do we see ones that are shown as live telecast. Though the media has other trivial issues to cover such as the continuing farmer suicides, the UP polls, the OBC quota and the increasingly muddled nuclear deal, it is this particular wedding which is going to change the lives of crores of Indians and that must be shown to the entire country. Other petty issues can wait.

Come on!!!!Who will be interested in what happens to the poor farmers and their families. Farmer suicides are happening and will continue to happen. The US is trying to suck our country into a nuclear wormhole and make us dependent on it for future fuel supply, but who the heck is interested in the future. We live in the present, party hard, go to pubs and take one day as it goes. We just want to know where ash-abhishiek are going to honeymoon, who else is going with them and will they call Salman Khan for wedding reception. Agreed that providing latest news to the public is the primary responsibility of the media , but am sure no one would be interested in things like whether the bride is a manglik, at what time did abhishek apply sindoor on ash or for that matter what was the menu at the wedding.

Also, the media tries to make us believe that we love cricket, even if we do not. It is because we are so good at it, though our recent form shows otherwise. The channels over hype the fact that our cricketers pour their hearts into every game. Other sports are not worthy of our attention. Other sportsmen do not pour their hearts out into their games. Other sportsmen are not worthy of endorsing our brands of footwear, aerated drinks or car batteries. Our cricketers alone deserve our adoration and we brand them heroes and set these people as an example to the generations to come, though they are no more than a mediocre group as a whole. Other sports do not matter to us. Our movie stars are intelligent. They study all scripts carefully and are always unwilling to propagate stereotypes. They live clean, wholesome lives and are therefore perfectly suited to deliver clean, wholesome messages to the masses that adore them. Therefore, we should watch their personal lives with all the care and attention we give to our lives.

According to me, this dangerous obsession with the celebrity culture and cricket is going to take us nowhere but downwards. This filthy and gaudy show of power and wealth does not go down well in a country where still 25% of our population is under poverty line and does not get even a single square meal a day. According to an expert group of Planning Commission, poverty line in rural areas is drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If the person is unable to get that minimum, level of calories is considered as being below poverty line. You may argue about who would want to see a boring story about the poor and the underprivileged ones when one can participate in the glamorous and glitzy wedding of the rich and famous through the television.

In his speech on the budget, Chidambaram quoted Nehru: “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture.” Agriculture represents much more to India than a mere slice of economic pie – it is the very lifeblood of the country, the source of livelihood for 115 million farming families and 70 percent of the country’s population, the base upon which the entire edifice of the nation rises. But then, these farmers toil hard in the field, braving the cruel sun, the merciless rain to grow food on which we feed ourselves whereas the page 3 celebrities are of no practical use to anyone but themselves. Therefore, whose condition needs to be portrayed on TV is anybody’s guess. It is equally true that we need a break from the serious stuff happening round us and this break is being provided by the entertainment and sports industry. However, sometimes, when the water crosses a certain level that things start becoming bad and even the things we loved earlier look very unreal and artificial to us. It is a sad fact that in a country where female foeticide reigns supreme and the dropout rate of children in a primary school is 25 percent, we feast our eyes and our soul on the glitzy lives of the bold and the beautiful. The media make us feel as if there are only two things in life CRICKET and BOLLYWOOD .Would someone please inform them there is another world beyond the film city and a new populace to meet beyond the cricket stadium.