Drunk with Boredom

Unlikely talking heads and tedious poll predictions make for heartbreaking TV. More IPL, please?

The average urban Indian male is a pitiable creature. According to Mumbai-based consultancy firm Cockspur Bundaberg and mountGay (CBmG), he is the primary reason for IPL’s success. A recent secret survey conducted by the firm revealed why. “He drives his 800cc car for nearly an hour before ringing the doorbell at 8 pm. Ideally, he prefers to be welcomed by the Saharanpur-meets-Singapore accent of Uday Joshi rattling out the cricket scores of the day on ESPN’s SportsCenter India. After pouring himself a stiff shot of his favourite poison, he settles down for the primetime news show at 9. He is essentially a sod whose entertainment options are as wide as bylanes of Byculla.” Given what’s on offer, he certainly would need a stiff one.

On Times Now, Newshour, anchored by Arnab Goswami, is perhaps the most comprehensive show of its kind, offering the day’s wrap, and opinion and analysis. Usually, there’s a retired Pakistani army officer via satellite link pitted against the ever-belligerent strategic analyst Maroof Raza, whose questions take longer than Agni missile would to reach Baluchistan. If your idea of nightly entertainment is listening to ageing editors and professional studio politicians rant, it can’t get better than Newshour.

Over at the old friends club 24/7, Prannoy Roy reads out the day’s news with the occasional toothless piece of editorialising for 30 minutes before buddies Shekhar Gupta, the spittle-spewing psephologist Dorab Sopariwala and Mukul Kesavan drop in for a bit of banter. Now, you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer person than Kesavan. He hosts a first-rate books show called Through The Covers on Star Cricket, almost always writes intelligently on the game, is secular and teaches social history. But put him alongside Shekhar Gupta, The Indian Express’ editor and political journalism’s pit bull, and the consequences can be terrible. Gupta dismisses most of Kesavan’s analysis as “too simplistic”. To prevent matters from getting out of hand, Roy interjects, telling Gupta he should perhaps give Kesavan a column in his newspaper. “I don’t discuss columns sitting inside NDTV’s studio,” retorts Gupta. Now his confidence shattered, every time Kesavan speaks, he turns to Gupta for approval. To use a cricketing metaphor, you can’t help wondering if the professor had become the editor’s ‘bunny’. In a sensible move, Gupta has been shifted to Barkha Dutt’s The Buck Stops Here.

At the CNN-IBN studios, Rajdeep Sardesai’s pancaked face and manufactured excitement (it usually peaks when he’s on about the BSP or other regional dark horses) make you wonder if he’ll fall out of the TV set into your drawing room. Over the last month, Desai and the khadi kurta-clad Yogendra Yadav have been agonising about post-poll scenarios. Almost every night, they inform us, ‘BJP and Left joining hands: probable but impossible’. Dear Lalit Modi, why one, have three IPLs a year. CBmG is right. If you don’t believe it, ask my liver.

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