HOW TO KILL A BUFFALO?

Television has been with us for fifty years, that is technically. Just like the platitude Indians are equal and are secular. Even today, in a shining India where MNCs throng, television density remains depressingly low. As in many other social indices, Kerala stands apart. The higher penetration rate has heavily impacted on our social habits and outlooks too. Evenings are for soap operas or reality shows. Women huddle in front of the glimmering screen, invariably their eyes riveted to it, ready to weep for the pangs of characters. By the half of last decade, private channels had almost replaced the staid state owned television and redefined our visual sensibility. An average Malayalee knows the world through television. What he sees on it true. In other words, the infallibility once attributed to print media has become the privilege of television. The factoid ‘camera does not lie’ is the plank on which the faith rests. Never ever have our channels dithered in taking advantage of this trust. We have seen how often the self-appointed wholesale dealers of truth whip up passion and frenzy on graft and sex, only to declare later that the whole affair was a bogus report concocted by a rival channel.

Arguably the Prudential World Cup in 1983 and the assassination of Indira Gandhi the following year were watersheds in the history of television. To own a television set became a new status symbol. In the 1990s, with the advent of cable networks, our living rooms were literally flooded with news and music. Channels vied with each other to bring in the latest and the intriguing. And often they infringed upon traditional media ethics. In the early 1990s Asianet, the first private player in Kerala, televised a documentary on the ruthless and unhygienic slaughtering of cattle in an abattoir in Trivandrum with the warning ‘carrying women and the weak-minded are advised to abstain from watching.’ In hindsight the gory scenes that splashed the screen and the minds seem to have been the curtain raiser of many a visual extravaganza to follow. Later Asianet and archrival Surya set new standards by repeatedly telecasting the visuals of a nut whacking a government employ to death.

It is during the same period that sting operations and exposés sparked off heated discussions and debates. To be fair, the startling revelation that sleaze had soaked bureaucracy was a jolt to the public and would play a major role in forming public perceptions about politics and politicians. In Kerala it was a documentary on the lives of bootleggers and contract killers by Asianet that set new senses and sensibilities on roll. The televisual debut into the murky lives and allies of the homegrown felons featured youngsters shuffling down with daggers slinging from their waists. The electrifying program remains fresh in memory. Now, after all these years, if a channel films the den of some goons, won’t they be shooting a bloodbath, with a lot of risk on their lives? Or will they tread the path of Edward Armstead in The Almighty in scripting and creating events to be reported? The hype over the murder of the young businessman Paul M. George and the ongoing investigation of Sr. Abhaya murder case raise chilling possibilities and eerie doubts.

Some days back, a weird action of a cop triggered much controversy. He was bold or outrageous enough to shoot parts of his colleagues grilling a petty actress arrested on charge of prostitution. He would not stop there. Rather mysteriously the picture found its way to the internet. Who was the prostitute here?

Questions and fears never end at the moment when we celebrate the golden jubilee of television.
(www.hksanthosh.blogspot.com)