OF DRAMA QUEENS AND SOCIAL STEREOTYPES

There are several things that bring out the concept of “longstanding pain” in our lives—queues, government or a wickedly deep tooth cavity. But all these pale in comparison to the object of my irritation today—television soaps operas! Come seven in the evening everyday and my family crowds around the television set, almost salivating in eager anticipation of their daily fix of family drama. Now I’m sure apologetics for this growing form of visual entertainment would argue that it isn’t exactly harmful and would accuse me of making a big noise about nothing. Well, a closer look at the effects of ‘serials’ on any society, especially ours, would reveal that these hour long dramas are not as benign as they may seem.

Essentially, a large section of the public watches these soaps with escapist intentions. They seem to provide a temporary distraction from their otherwise banal and monotonous lives. The ‘riveting’ plots, the big twists and the chunky jewellery complimented by impassable layers of make-up for even the most ordinary, indoor scenes all form a part of this ‘charm’ that keeps audiences across our country glued to their TV sets every weeknight. But here’s the scary bit—what happens when people begin to imitate this preposterousness in their everyday lives? That can happen on many different levels. First, it can result in the creation of extra drama when there isn’t any at all. A lot of soap opera fans eventually develop an honest belief that their lives are ‘empty’ without a good dose of tears, tantrums and scheming. These soaps have only made our society much more emotionally fragile and people have lost the ability to be stoic about the smallest of things. This does not match the requirements of the life around us, which demands a high emotional quotient as a pre-requisite for success.

Next, the audience demographic has seen a major paradigm shift and with the greater accessibility of television sets even in low income homes, the viewer ship has increased. But the settings of most soaps operas have remained the same—big, affluent families that live in mansions with a surprisingly large number rooms for when the characters need to storm out in a fit of rage. Ideas of economic and social meagreness are reinforced within the denied sections of society and they begin to set unrealistic dreams for themselves. Worse still, they might even resort to unhealthy and detrimental ways to achieve their desires. By and large, most soaps only serve to perpetuate stereotypes and this will never give us as a society the impetus to rise above. Intellectually, the amount of stimulation is about as limited as the acting abilities of these soapstars.

It is quarter to seven now and my mother seems edgy. Any attempts by me to make even the slightest contact with the television remote control will definitely result in a week-long banishment from the dinner table. Promptly, the rest of my family takes its place at the foot of the revered Samsung, waiting in deferential silence for the advertisements to end and the first notes of that hallowed theme song to ring out. Oh well, at least we’re spending time together as a family—even if it does involve sitting in front of a screen in a zombie-like fashion for an entire hour.

The Dark Side of India’s Growth Story

At the next election, an issue that will undoubtedly figure prominently will be the plague of rising inflation. After flaunting the prodigious growth of the Indian industry as one of their biggest successes, the UPA must now resolve the darkest blemish on their track record. Last year, they thought it was an inevitable, concomitant phenomenon that would dovetail with the celebrated growth rate of 9% of our GDP. The reserve bank hiked the cash-reserve ratio in a monetary attempt to reduce the liquidity in the system. The Finance Minister reiterated the hackneyed ‘aam aadmi’ rhetoric and labelled it as a supply-side problem that would be sorted by the next crop season.

A year later and things have gone from bad to worse. The inflation rates have hit an all-time high of 7%, the storm after the ‘calm’ of a P.A Chidambaram budget. I suppose it is unfair to place the blame entirely on the government because this rise in rises has global influences. For starters, Mother Nature hasn’t been too generous with her dispensation of weather conditions conducive to growing food crops. Two successive droughts in Australia, the world’s second largest producer of wheat has triggered off a global sense of panic. The consequence, according to economists, is the ‘national hoarding of food grains’. Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan and Argentina, all big producers of wheat and other food grains, have begun to curb exports. Back home meanwhile, we read stories of wheat crops being damaged in Punjab on a rather large scale due to unfavourable weather. The Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Sharad Pawar has recently stated that the government is even willing to import wheat to increase the supply and bring prices down. They have already enforced a ban on the export of food grains and there is a feeling among that these moves might ruin farming community.

This is where our government falls short in its duty to the country—stop-gap measures employed to temporarily assuage public panic. The government and its followers believed that the 60,000 crore loan waiver would be the panacea to farmer woes. Hardly a month on and the farmers are discovering the measure to be nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction. Most farmers can hardly avail of the waiver because its land ceiling of 2 hectares is too low for our widely practiced system of joint holdings. Furthermore, the government finds itself in a Catch 22 situation—should it work on reducing the consumer price rise by banning exports? This would be at the expense of the protection of agrarian interests. A lowering of paddy prices by Rs.100 per quintal could have extremely harsh ramifications for the farmers as the losses incurred will be passed onto them.

The government should not forget that this steady rise in inflation rates is also concurrent with an increase in middle class salaries. In the long term, it may not hit them as hard as it will the farmers. Rather than resorting to another myopic reaction, the government should look at dealing with this issue with the long term interest of the farmers in mind. Otherwise, there might even be a greater shift to the cultivation of commercial crops by farmers due to the limited rewards from raising food crops. Unless this government and its successor in 2009 channel their energies at honestly dealing with the agricultural issues of our country instead of handing out the seasonal election sop, the country will dangerously compromise her self-interests.

Cricket's Generation Gap?

Just when you thought Indian cricket had redeemed itself, it begins to pick at old wounds. The latest round of exchanges involving skipper M.S Dhoni and the ‘senior’ players gives us another week’s worth of sports drama. This time, we see Dhoni sporting what he thinks is a well deserved last laugh; this after having proved that the junior players, whose corner he assumed, are worth their keep. And of course, where better to enjoy this laugh than under the ever watchful eyes of our rapacious media.

The reason I intentionally treated the word ‘senior’ in the previous sentence to those punctuation flourishes was to merely highlight the absurdity of the concept that the word implied. ‘Senior’ players are portrayed unfairly as doddering, old men who cling onto their places in the starting eleven until the latter have to be pried from their dead, cold fingers. Let’s explore this concept of seniority in Indian cricket. I suppose this category of fossils would include Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid. Some others may refer to them as the ‘holy trinity’ of Indian cricket but oh, far be it from our BCCI to stoop to such vile acts of name-calling. Let us consider this: the average age of the Aussie team, who have held a monopoly over cricket for a better part of the last decade, is 30. Having played the part of the perennial number two squad who can boast of potential but never any silverware, the South African squad averages at 28. It must be pointed out that players like Roger Telemachus have made their debut only after crossing the ‘big three-O’. Even in the subcontinent, things aren’t very different as the average age of the Sri Lankan national side is 29. And India, after all its petty age squabbles, averages at a much lower 25.

We begin to wonder why so much is made of this seemingly small issue. We also wonder if it is one that is limited to our country alone. I mean, shouldn’t the selectors worry about form and consistency, instead of drawing up these watertight age compartments? Even then, they often find themselves, much like our cricketers, inconsistent in following their own selection policy. Why is someone like Sehwag, who turns thirty this year, picked for the series against Australia despite his diabolical form? On the other hand, why is cricket’s biggest comeback story, Sourav Ganguly relegated being only a part of the test squad despite his excellent form in the shorter version of the game?

We must admit that the away series win in Australia would never have happened if it wasn’t for those pivotal Sachin Tendulkar innings in both the finals. The team and its fans must start to encourage an assimilation of experience and youth. Sure, we need Ishant Sharmas and R.P Singhs but there is no need for harsh age distinctions. Dhoni justified his choice of younger players by mentioning ‘fielding abilities’ as the selection criteria. What about other characteristics such as strategy or composure, which are indispensable? After all, young Manoj Tiwary claims that if he took anything away from this tournament, it was Tendulkar’s batting tips. Not to forget that players like Robin Uthappa haven’t showed themselves to be very competent with batting technique. This is the stuff that sets apart a world-class player, capable of holding his own, from a rookie.

The Indian media’s treatment of our team is very similar to the relationship between the British press and its national football side. We seem to build up our youngsters, throw money at them and even base entire ad campaigns on this concept of a generation waiting in the wings. But how many youngsters have proven to be consistent? Wasn’t Dinesh Karthik once hailed as the next Indian Skipper? Now he can barely keep his place on the team. Performance related pay and a strict watch on player exposure to the media should be what the BCCI focuses on. Otherwise, we’ll be raising a generation of Salil Ankolas, victims of selector inconsistencies. Indian cricket at the grassroots level is undoubtedly an in exhaustive mine for talent. Let’s make sure we raise our young cricketers the right way. But let’s also treat our ‘seniors’ with due respect, appreciating what they’ve given the game.

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Letter

To,
The Editor,
The Hindu.

Dear Sir,
The recent polling during the Tripura elections has reaffirmed the citizen’s faith in our system of democracy. First, the high turnout of women voters, surpassing that of the men goes to show the political consciousness in the state. Furthermore, despite the Congress pulling out their “star campaigners”, Mr. Manmohan Singh and Ms. Gandhi, the voters seem to look beyond such political gimmicks and evidence of this is seen in their refusal to rally behind such a campaign. Our “educated”, urban voters can definitely learn a thing or two from the elections in Tripura, where heavy turnout was reported from the tribal areas. It is fallacious to suppose that the indigenous people often end up falling prey to false promises and cheap gimmicks of the powerful parties and consequently put the wrong people in power. Rather, the people of Tripura have set an example by successfully executing the first ever election using the Elector’s Photo Identity card.
Thank you,

Paul Dharamraj

(N.B: This was an issue that almost everyone in the media gave little importance to. They deemed it necessary to devote pages and entire programmes to IPL auctions. As expected, my letter didn't get published!)