The Times They Are a Changin’

Guru Dutt got it right, you know, or rather Sahir Ludhianvi and Guru Dutt got it right.. in pyaasa, when they asked Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye Tho Kya Hai and Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par Woh Kahan Hain.. what has the world come to.. blasts here and blasts there and blasts everywhere.. 

Surfing through channels day before night I chanced upon one of the many news channels reporting the Varanasi blasts – I felt that the reporting had been taken to an extreme, that the news channels have become ambulance chasers – showing the bloodied temple and the blast sites and the blast victims was anguishing at the very least and voyeuristic at the worst.. Media seems to have unleashed itself in a form not so far seen in the indian shores – the need to report seems to be on a low priority, the need to blast the senses of viewer with violent images seems to be the requirement.. In that sense, the Indian media is fast starting to resemble the Western one, where the reporting is more on the need to stun and startle than actually analyse and report.. the reporters of today will probably prefer to catch the Senator McCarthy equivalent with his hand in the till or better still with his pants down than actually analyse what damage the man is doing.. Good Night, Good Luck, the movie seems to be a throwback to an era when reporting and news shows were analytical and hosts respected for their knowledge more than for their ability to stun and startle and to a certain extent titillate the audience.. which is what today’s hosts seem to be at..

Shekhar Suman, a guy i dont mind much, though he is very much a poor man’s Jay Leno what with his jokes.. Sidhu is a bit more of a nightmare.. of course, everything is a vote for your favourite musician/singer/footballer/miss india/actor/actress/movie (strike out those not applicable). detestable it seems.. anyways that is my personal opinion of it..

my cable guy has taken to showing korean movies on odd nights, the movies invariably are in korean and for subtitles we have an ad for the local beauty parlour.. but what has impressed me in the few scenes that i have seen so far is that the korean heroes are even more super heroic than mithunda or rajinikanth – there was one who kept knocking out soldiers armed with kalashnikov rifles by kicking coconuts onto them – the coconuts were thrown to him by his one legged friend.. of course, there was this guy who got shot some fifteen times and still lived to the end.. in fact through some spectacular bomb blast sequences.. the police of course came in the end to recuse the whole lot.. well, it certainly wasnt old boy but it was enjoyable..

Still getting the hang of blogging.. it is quite difficult you know.. been 15 days since my last post.. anyways will stop this post here..