The Fourth Estate

Typically every issue has 3 media characters – the aggressor – who pushes the envelope and takes the role of the activist, the silent watcher – who wants to steer away from controversy and report the event as it pans out and the defender – who defends the issue either by being vocal or being silent about certain aspects so as to brush things under the carpet. These roles are played interchangeably by the men of media so as to suit their whims, pockets and favors.


The business of media is thus a business of ideologies more than anything else. Every newspaper is in the end a mouthpiece for what its owners stand for. The attempt is always to influence people. Some like Saamna are very direct and others like a Hindu employ numerous tools like subtlety, silence and misdirection to forward its ideologies. It is very clear how every Murdoch product will always favour war, catholicism, capitalism, anti-abortion, etc.

Atleast there is a refreshing honesty in the way party mouthpieces like Saamna work. There is no pretense unlike the men of English media and also regional independent media. They never claimed to be anything but propaganda machines. The language used by these mouthpieces is vile and extremely biased. The intention is to excite and infuriate the mobs into instinctive, brash actions. It is also a tool to justify its acts of violence against the minority. A healthy mix of rhetoric, passion and romanticism is used to hoodwink the readers into approving its actions.

It is also economics in the end. Whatever content that brings in revenue is published and whatever hampers it is avoided. And no one in this business is “Doodh Ka Dhula Hua”.

There is a certain sameness to the entire media industry today. An Arnab Goswami is no different from a Sanjay Pugalia in the sense that they all are eventually the pallbearers of the same brahminical lineage that 90% of the media industry hails from. It is still the upper caste who is covering the news, It is still the upper caste who is running the news business, it is still the upper caste financing it through ads. And so, while it may seem that it’s the masses who make or break these media entities, masses are the ones who matter the least to them. Masses are a number which comes every week in the TAM data. They don’t bring money. The advertisers don’t want to talk to the SEC C and D of our populace at all. And so the mouthpieces of the SEC A and B continue to grow and prosper. In a country of a 100 crores, the biggest advertisers are actually choosing between a 36 lac publication versus a 72 lac publication so as to maximize reach at the best cost per person.

The above two points of ideology and economics may seem strange bedfellows. They might even seem antagonistic to each other. But the fact is they both have gone hand in hand for ages now. Its what the catholic church does. Its what every Godman and media mogul has always done.

And this is where the role of the new media and the power it gives to the common man is so important and hence so infinitely scary for these merchants of distress. The pro-sumer is slowly emerging and the tenets of marketing are going for a toss.

The flip side is that every two penny bum who has neither perspective nor depth is spewing crap on his blog and taking every discussion – be it on a Pandit Jasraj youtube video or a Cricinfo article on Sachin - to a Hindu-Muslim slugfest where mothers and sisters of all parties are invoked.

The media is a lot of things, but sadly, it eventually is only a reflection of the society we create, we inhabit, he help proliferate.

Wonderyears

Innocuous little cleaning visit to my old house – lived there for 15 years. Havent been there even once since I moved out 5 years ago.


Quaint little catholic colony with un-Bombayesque amounts of greenery

And un-Indianesque amounts of facilities to play football and basketball and volleyball and tennis and carrom and TT

Jolly old men with cute hats and funny accents

Pretty ladies with long legs and the licence to show them off

The best location to smell the rainy wet mud without any urban adulterations

Actual Blytonesque places called ‘the chapel’ and ‘the grotto’; pretty words no? They are even prettier to look at!

Easter = Marshmallows, Christmas = Mars bars from the neighbour’s Canadian daughter (blue-eyes, rosy cheeks, absolutely smoking hot, sexy dancer)

Christmas Eve = Kiddies party, New Years Eve = Ball Dance and alcohol – catholic boys attended them, even got dates along. I was asked to sit at home and mug up why Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji so tight

The said Canadian daughter of the neighbour used to find yours truly adorable. She once announced if I was her age Id be her first choice for a boyfriend. Didnt exactly grow up to be the stud she envisaged :(

The kids living opposite our house were miniature versions of me and my brother. And when Sachin would make a 100, both pairs would be yelping with joy. We would exchange notes on how much McGrath was hated from balcony to balcony.

Abba was still the rage, George Micheal, even bigger!

Cricket was cool, football was cooler

But when the girls came out in their little skirts and shorts to play throwball, the crickets bats and the footballs lay unattended, unused, forlorn

And cycles were called bikes. And they were the ultimate status symbol. A BMX beat the Atlas and the BSA hands down. And there used to be biker gangs who would scour through the rough terrain of the colony, bullying the young and old; and then would end the day as the sun would go down with a good old ice-candy. How cool is that!

On good days in the field, we were the Waugh brothers, on bad ones we were relegated to being the Flower brothers.

We even had an Uncle Wilson who was the victim of all our Menace

And then there was this slim hot-headed girl. Spoke too fast in English and did not particularly like any of the boys. But she would come for tuitions in the building opposite mine and would sit at the balcony for hours to study. And I would sit on my window for hours pretending to study. The optimist in me thought that our eyes met quite often. There seemed to be that semblance of a smile also sometimes, reciprocated by a toothy grin on the other end. She had a pretty name, an even prettier face and played throwball as if her life depended on it.

Film : A Good Year (2006)

Starring: Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard

Max Skinner – Every one of my memories takes place within a 100 steps from this place

Christie Roberts – So are they good memories?

Max Skinner – No........ They are GRAND!

P.S. - A list of things found while rummaging through the old furniture today – some old photos, my passing certificate for TYBCom(yeah, I am that careless!), a notebook converted into a personal diary which died a premature death after 2 and half entries, a torn cover of a cricket bat and, a spiral-bound marketing proposal of Umang 2003.

P.P.S. – For those who don’t know, I might be moving to Delhi for atleast 2 years, next month onwards. Or, I might be in Bombay for good. Either ways, will announce it here with a big post on the 2 cities. Hope the product is worth the build up Im giving it!