Looking for Mr. Wrong

MRINAL PANDE

A FEW weeks after DD announced its major foray into reality TV, titled "Swayamvar", came news that the Sony people were also planning to launch a similar programme, to be comp red by a major film star. Pushu, my scholar cousin and itinerant celebrity- baiter, called up. "Forget Sony, but why do you think an otherwise sane and conservative DD is also planning this?" he asked me. There was a pause, while we both waited for me to find a diplomatic answer. Finally I said, perhaps they both feel that marriages arranged along caste-class lines are pass; and that young women have a right to choose their Mr. Right themselves. Women's Empowerment year and all that, I finished with an apologetic laugh.

"But who believes in intercaste marriages? look at the blatantly casteist matrimonials that sell our newspapers. Also what about the post-marital lives of those glamorous debutantes of "Bharat, EK Khoj?" Damyanti, Seeta, Draupadi, all of them had a Swayamvar without fear of Television Rating Points (TRP) ratings, or favours from advertisers but all ended up in exile and penury, didn't they? Even great warriors like Nala, Rama and Arjuna could not prevent their Swayamvarised marriages from turning messy. And, mind you, that was the age of Treta and Dwapar. Do you seriously think these poor young things from Kaliyuga, are going to fare better than those after their Swayamvar?"

As usual, Pushu had scored a teleological point there. I laughed and agreed that in this age of ever-rising statistics on divorce, dowry deaths and marital violence, advertising free choice of mates through a televised Swayamvara, seemed a rather questionable idea. Having worked with several TV channels, however, loyalty demanded that I do not give up so soon. "Look at the programme's potential for mopping up audiences and generating advertising revenue," I insisted, "a programme of this sort promises to rake in mega audiences, and mega-bucks."

"Does it really?"

"Well, we've been told, for a reality serial that literally marries money to matrimony, every kind of advertising will be available from national and international manufacturers of consumer durables and non-durables. Two separate surveys have been done, and they both show that TV ad spends have actually risen. ORG-MARG's Media Analyser Package (MAP) says it has risen by 16 per cent and Current Opinion Future Trends pegs the increase at 30 per cent. Also advertising time is up, my dear. Do you know that TV ad-expenditure still commands about 38 per cent of the total ad-pie? This is the time for channels to launch new viewer-friendly serials if ever there was one! DD, the public broadcaster will rule TRP ratings, you'll see!"

There was a delighted cackle at the other end. As usual I had walked into Pushu's trap. "Haven't you," he laughed," heard of the latest Television Audience Measurement (TAM) scam? Since the lists of homes where the ratings were being collected through people-metres were leaked, all T.V. ratings have become suspect! But even before that in actual terms T.V. revenues for all channels have been falling. Now they are down almost to one tenth."

"How come?"

"The ad-agencies are just not coughing up their outstanding dues that's how. In the Lok Sabha, the Information and Broadcasting Minister quoted a mind-boggling sum of over a billion rupees that the public broadcaster has failed to realise from makers of its sponsored programmes. What with discounting of rates by rivals and gimmicks like offering bonus air time to ad companies, all the channels are going to face grim times. DD or Sony will be no exceptions."

With a chuckle, Pushu put the phone down. End of conversation. "Baat nikli hai to door talak jayegi" - once you talk, the talk shall run a very long course indeed, said an Urdu poet.

Even if we forget about the TAM scam and tales from the scriptures, some other, unanswered questions shall pop-up on your screens. Take for example the tease for the Swayamvar show that says that the happy bridge and groom will enter their married life with the blessings of 2.5 million prime time Indian viewers. Also that the couple shall be showered with countless attractive gifts from various sponsors. But the question is the day after the reality wedding, is this mountain of gifts going to be construed as Stree-Dhan (claimable by the woman as her exclusive property) or dowry, which is illegal, both via--vis giving and receiving thereof?

And will the cameras from then on (citing 2.5 m. viewers' demand) also plan on continuing with the game and go on to pan the honeymooners inside their sponsored hotel suite, if some willing company offers to revise the rates and sponsor more gifts and cash and the couple agrees?

Will this dare all and bare all, be questionable under the Indecent Portrayal of Women in the Media Act? Will George Fernandes cite the bride's human rights and call for the arrest of the groom?

It is obvious, that in bringing reality T.V., to our screens, we will be moving from accidental celebrities like Phoolan and that hapless girl Sonu (who was recently murdered by her caste Panchayat members along with her groom, for having dared to choose her own mate) to a new era of voyeurism. What will we then call the death of the Orissa tribals, unreality T.V.?

As villages merge into cities and yesterday's farmers turn into today's urban squatters, many families are cracking up. And as an antidote for loss of community, T.V. seems to be creating virtual communities where the lonely viewers will mourn Mihir's death more than Phoolan's. Here good marriages or droughts shall not be deemed made in heaven, but in film-studios.

News became Infotainment in the 1980s. In 2001, entertainment is news. And the loss of one's privacy, once George Orwell's nightmare, is going to be cheerily transformed into India's latest prime-time spectacle.

So SONY and DD may sing with Marx (Groucho not Karl)

"I will admit
"I use my wit
To hoodwink my competitors
On some far beach
I love to sit
Evading all my creditors." 

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