Three Wise Words

Fifteen years after Tony Blair gave the election war cry of “Education, education, education!” to stir up his nation’s underbelly and take to task her army of chavs and endearing thugs, many of whom would one day grow up to anchor silly car shows, in a land far, far away, and with its own army of mind-numbing soaps and crime shows, one curvaceous lady has decided to crack the whip and make slight changes to the original text.

“Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment!” says Vidya Balan, with a wink and a smile so naughty even Durvasa Rishi would find his aamaran anshan untenable. The nation collects, stands and watches open-mouthed, and nods in agreement. “Enough is enough”, they are saying. “Finally someone’s had the courage to tell Tony bhai he was lying.”

There is something to be said about a word being used repeatedly, to be precise, three times. The damn thing stirs you up. It is almost as if the first utterance hits the head, shaking off the dandruff. The second, following close behind, drills into the skull. And the third and final blurt wriggles its way to that part of the brain responsible for all our thoughts and actions. And although one may bung it in, the third blow already has the word bobbing up and down in our cerebrospinal fluid, promising the speaker our undying concord and gratitude.

So this is how crafty gentlemen win elections and curvaceous ladies our hearts.

That said, much has changed of our respective nations since Mr. Blair took the advice of his spin doctor and appended his election rally speech. For starters, our only source of entertainment back then was a Ministry of Information & Broadcasting-sponsored television channel where gazetted officers broadcasted whatever information was supplied to them. If the information was supplied in duplicate, the show was repeated in the afternoons.

Print media fared no better. It is undoubtedly hard, but do try and recollect the mornings as they were then, without the page 3 supplements to make your eyes pop out mechanically and your heart beat arrhythmically. When entertainment meant skimming through column-yards of chautha-uthalas and classifieds that thanked god for a new job, a lovely wife and even a miraculous cure from elephantiasis.

Worse, there were no malls to speak of, no Big Bazaars only buddh bazaars. The economy was starting to pick up and the crony-capitalists had just organised their first national convention, where trembling palms were planted on burning wicks and promises made to make India ‘regain’ her natural position among the top five nations of the world.

Mr. Blair’s nation, in contrast, was on the cusp of greatness (yet again). Her count firmly established among the top five nations of the world, her subjects laissez-faire, her footballers monogamous, and her economy shining.

How things have changed!

We now have more TV channels than STD booths, more malls than STD clinics, and more page 3 supplements than can satisfy a nymphomaniac just back from a south-pole expedition. To top it all, our economy is booming. A fact acknowledged with thunderous applause at the recently concluded tenth national crony-capitalist convention.

And what of the land that flaunts the crown whose VVS1 koh-i-noor we once were? Unsure of its place in the world, beset with problems ranging from expenses scandals, street riots, bad weather and Olympics, with an economy teetering on the verge of collapse…uneasy lies the head indeed.

To be honest, things aren’t that bad. Britain still has the best economy amongst all third-world countries. What it doesn’t have, though, and where it can learn a thing or two from us, is the knack of delivering ‘entertainment, entertainment, entertainment’ through its news channels which foolishly still persist with supplying just news and analysis all day long. Fifteen years of ‘education, education, education’ has done little else but make the island-nation more knowledgeable and literate. Evolve damnit!

Imagine a four-by four-hundred hurdles relay race, for that is exactly what a news channel is nowadays. A blank is fired and they are off, shouting and screaming, negotiating ad-breaks and breaking-nows, a studio for a stadium, round and round the clock. At some point – and at what point exactly is crucial – the fellow with the news and analysis passes the baton on to the one in charge of entertainment and filmi gossip. The inflection point has been decided largely through trial and error, over many months of nationwide surveys and opinion polls, and now is uniformly taken to be half-past ten at night. Come 10:25 pm and the entertainment and filmi gossip man is stomping his feet and loosening his limbs – all set to relieve the exhausted news anchor who is sprinting to hand over the baton and then clutching his knees to stop them from jangling.

Why half-past ten? Well, that has been adjudged to be the precise moment when the Indian couch potato has had just about enough of the studio debate (“Bas! Hatao ab in saalon ko, yaar.”), and there is a risk he might be so disgusted with the state of the nation he may not exercise his vote in the next general election. Calamity for the debating politicians!

And so, as if by magic, the studio transforms into a riot of colour, with a range of cut-outs and a pair of scantily-clad anchors rubbing their hands and other body parts in glee.

By 10:31, the finer points and considered ripostes made by the spokespersons on topics ranging from 2G to Behenji are as much ancient history as the principles of panchsheel. All that matters for the next hour is who slapped who and who kissed who and who was slapped because of the kiss. Sensibilities restored, the Indian voter may after all exercise his franchise. Democracy is the real winner.

Kya is raat ki koi subah nahin? The channel-waalahs who gloat at the unabated success of this recipe are hereby forewarned. There is a new ‘Justice of the Peace’ at the helm of our affairs and he likes only Ghalib and Rumi and Dostoevsky. And while brandishing his gavel and dispensing his verdict on the daily relay races, he may well repeat verbatim those famous words of the Iron Lady uttered almost twenty years ago: “No, no, no!”