India Insight

(The following post contains some essential Hindi translation help from my colleagues Arnika Thakur, Suraj Balakrishnan and Havovi Cooper. Any remaining errors or lack of precision are my fault as I reviewed and participated in all translations. Additionally, any opinions here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters Corp.)

From the desk of Rajdeep Sardesai, editor in chief of Indian news network IBN Live (I stitched these sentences together from his Twitter account):

My timeline suggests little space for healthy debate/discussion on twitter. So will no longer raise any political issues on the medium. Will continue writing/talking on issues of natl interest in print/tv, but not on twitter. Will continue to write in print/speak on tv. But will no longer seek twitter as a medium for public debate. Had hoped to interact; failed. A journalist has only his integrity/credibility. That has been abused on this medium for too long by unknown people. Time to switch off.

Or: I’ve had it with you awful people. You are intolerable and I don’t have to tolerate your abuse.

Indeed.

I can’t determine whether Sardesai plans to leave Twitter or whether he is going to save just his political coverage and thoughts for the papers and for television. I also don’t know which comments or which Twitter users led him to this decision, though I have asked him these questions.

I was watching a documentary on Greta Garbo on television. The film was in English with English subtitles for people more comfortable following written English than quick spoken English. Every time the word “sex” or something related to it would come up, the subtitles avoided it. “Heterosexual” became “hetero.” “Her sexuality” became “her femininity.” Dedicated channel surfing revealed similar evasions. In a conversation about breast cancer on an English channel, the station inserted an asterisk to partially mask the word “breast” in the subtitles, even though you could hear it onscreen.

TV stations and networks in India, similar to broadcast TV channels in the United States, remove objectionable content (sex scenes, nudity, some foul language and violence) from movies and other programming (see this recent Reuters story about how it works). This is thanks to the Indian Broadcasting Federation’s Broadcasting Content Complaint Council. The idea is to make sure that public airwaves remain friendly enough for the ears of children and sensitive adults, though it can result in unintentional bloopers like the breast cancer example.

Apply that to film, and it can be an editing massacre. Look for odd leaps forward in the film’s plot and you can see where the chopping happened. It wasn’t always this way. Channels such as Star Movies and HBO made minimal cuts or none at all until the BCCC was established in 2011. Hindi films fare little better. The lovemaking scene between Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta in “Salaam Namaste” was removed from the televised version of the movie. “The Dirty Picture,” the film about softcore actress Silk Smitha that starred Vidya Balan, came in for 59 cuts, but still couldn’t make the cut for television.

Indians woke up on Sunday to front page newspaper ads announcing the TV premiere of “The Dirty Picture”, a National-award winning film that was both critically acclaimed and successful at the box-office.

The film, based on the life of soft porn star Silk Smitha, was one of the most popular Bollywood movies of 2011, and its success catapulted lead actress Vidya Balan into the big league.

It was a glaring example of how Indian audiences, torn between traditional values and rapidly Westernising cities, have come to accept films with bolder themes.

A new reality show in which a bunch of suitable men vie for the hand of Bollywood starlet Rakhi Sawant is an interesting twist on the prevailing custom of Indian men choosing their brides.

“Rakhi Sawant ka Swayamvar“, which harks back to the ancient tradition of princesses choosing a groom from a line-up, began airing on Monday night, pitting more than a dozen men from varied backgrounds — and with varying singing and dancing abilities — wooing Sawant, a colourful personality known more for her antics off camera.

It may be yet another publicity stunt for Sawant, who claims she will marry one of the men at the end of the series in a traditional wedding ceremony.

The concept of a televised war was born in January 1991, when news networks reported live on the missiles slamming into Baghdad and millions watched from the comfort of their living rooms as tracer fire lit the sky above Iraq's capital. A decade later,  the world watched in minute-by-minute horror as the twin towers came crashing down in New York. 

Now, with the ferocious militant attacks in Mumbai, we have arrived in "the age of celebrity terrorism". Paul Cornish of Chatham House argues that apart from killing scores of people, what the Mumbai gunmen wanted was "an exaggerated and preferably extreme reaction on the part of governments, the media and public opinion". 

It's too early to tell if governments will respond with extreme reaction, but the saturation coverage of the drama in the world's media would suggest that, at least on this level, the killers were successful.  

Prime-time television in India is not really known for sensible content. Especially the soap operas. I have never been a fan but one tedious evening, I switched on the telly and sat through one “saas-bahu” serial after another.

What was it about family dramas that kept millions of Indian women glued to their TV sets each evening? I intended to find out.

In one such episode, a mother-in-law laments the loss of an unborn grandchild.

“We have lost our grandson and our daughter-in-law cannot bear a child after this. Now we will never have a grandson to take the family name forward.”

A new ad campaign featuring Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Neha Dhupia has viewers’ curiosity piqued with its almost soap opera feel, with each advert dealing with a new episode in their love triangle.

The story so far: Chopra and Khan were once together, and Chopra still carries a flame for him, and half a heart-shaped locket. Khan, who has the other half of the locket, is about to propose to Dhupia, but also still has feelings for Chopra. Incensed  Dhupia dumps Khan, and in the latest episode Chopra was looking for Khan at the airport.

So here’s the $1 million question: What was keeping them apart? You’ll never guess: Chopra’s dark complexion that lost out to fairer-skinned Dhupia.