criticism from web site

A picture speaks a thousand words. And a frame to frame coverage on the small screen can reveal it all - maybe the real face behind the veil… Is that why Tarunnum Khan, the crorepati bar girl decides to hide behind a burqha to give her television interviews? As if to hide herself from the real world.

For the whole of this week, there was Tarunnum hounded by news channels - face well hidden under a jet black veil with her piercing moist eyes on camera.

On Friday morning, the day she was arrested, I caught her on Channel 7 saying that she left Mumbai the night before because of tremendous media pressure. It seems journalists and news crews had just parked themselves outside her bungalow. To quote her verbatim, "I come from an orthodox family and I really don't really know the meaning of Hawala and sattebaji (betting). I don't know who these bookies are and how they operate. I have really learned these words from the media." And in the same breath she seemed to be asking the reporter for media support.

Not really bothered, the persistant reporter continued asking her ruthlessly about her alleged links with cricketers and actors. What was really interesting here was to watch that though the "victims" continue to cry hoarse against the media hounding them, yet they continue giving soundbytes and interviews.

Even more ruthless and insensitive was the grilling of a rape victim on one of the news channels. The whole story on the Toofan Express rape victim seemed like quite a farce. I mean, what did the reporter want to know from this young girl who was in any case too shocked to speak after the incident?

How relevant is a sound byte to a story? One expects some amount of sensitivity from reporters who are interviewing common people caught up in controversies. Sometimes, just putting across the soundbyte - there was this reporter trying to get a statement from the Toofan Express rape victim? One expects some amount of sensitivity when you're dealing with stories but instead what one found was the reporter trying to get a statement from the victim on whether she would be able to identify the men etc, etc.

Perhaps, the story message that was really to be conveyed was on the increasing crime cases in running trains which have become a subject of major concern and not feeding off fresh wounds of victims.

*****

Talking about common people, their lives and aspirations; I remember Sony's Yeh Meri Life Hain. I was on it for a long time to check out on what's happening with Pooja, the main protagonist. I felt, the soap, which began as a story of a young, middle class lead protagonist Pooja (Shama Shikander) has also turned into a soapy weepy saga like all the others.

Looks like, the serial has moved on from the campus climate and the constant struggle between the old and the new generation. Earlier on, somehow the soap looked very charged with Pooja's thick Gujarati accent but this week around I saw some real melodramatic scenes.

In the current track there is Mahesh Thakur who's been brought in to play a psychiatrist. The last time I saw Mahesh was in Zee's Astitva - Ek Prem Kahani where he played a doctor. In the current track, where Mahesh seems to play a negative character, he's hand-in-glow with Rahil Azam Pooja's husband, who also is the real villain in the story.

But somehow, I think the soap with its original focus on today's youth, their aspirations was more interesting. And the current track seems to be really going nowhere.