vijaykm@jason.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU (Vijay K Madisetti) (01/30/86)
Date: 29 Jan 86 19:24:19 EST
From: BHATNAGAR@red.rutgers.edu
Subject: Desh Kee Baaten II
To: iitnet@ernie.berkeley.edu
Message-Id: <12179214668.46.BHATNAGAR@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Status: RO
Firstly about "Desh Ki Baaten I". I am thankful to Kamal Gupta, Rajiv Jog, S
Sankar, Siddhartha Chattarjee and many others for responding and providing some
of the missing information. 'The very smart quiz master' of QUIZ-TIME happens
to be Siddhartha Bosu the smart lady is, of course, Kavita Agrawal. Siddartha
Chattarjee also pointed out that AIR Calcutta also had a weak FM transmitter
about which I did not know. It was also mentioned by him that India's first
electronic phone exchange was in Salt Lake City, Calcutta and not in Kanpur. My
friend who recently qualified in general studies paper of the Civil service
Exam told me that it was in Kanpur! Well, till we confirm pick your choice.
Talking of the Country II
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TV Serials:
The serial "Hum Log"( We People, literal translation) had started in summer 84.
For those of you who have no idea about it, Hum Log serialized the day to day
problems of a middle class New Delhi family. Each of its episodes was
'philosophically' introduced and summarized by none other than Ashok Kumar.
Right from the beginning it attracted a lot of attention but no one had
expected that it will continue for more than 18 months ( mostly weekly but some
times bi-weekly ). It ended during my stay after over 150 episodes and I saw
many sad faces and heard discussions about its virtues. A cartoon by Sudhir Dar
in next day's Hindustan Times best epitomized the feelings- "A crying and
mourning family with the caption- they were so attached to Hum Log". It is
said that so intense was the viewer's involvement in Hum Log that they
practically wrote the stories themselves, sharing their ideas, suggestions and
worries about the Hum Log family with real writers through Phone Calls and
letters. Incidentally, all serials of Hum Log have been bought by the BBC to
be shown on their channel 4. No wonder we might also eventually get them on our
Indian networks here. Though I have my doubts about its relevance here.
A series of serials followed. 'Shriman Shrimati' ( About a mod couple of
Bombay), 'Yeh Jo hai Jindagi', very well known 'Rajani' etc. were some of the
other popular serials of this period. 'Yeh Jo Hai Jindagi' and 'Rajani'
produced what can be termed as 'India's first TV Stars' in Shafi Inamdar and
Priya Tendulkar (readers of India Today would already be familiar).
As it always happens, this series of serials has now reached a little too far.
At the moment doordarshan has over 500 serials waiting to be shown. It seems
the omnipresent bribe, pull and corruption have crept in here also. Currently
most of the serials are very ordinary. One of them 'Nukkar' (Corner of a
street), about a 'chaal' of Bombay is almost obscene and, surely, is not worth
showing on the TV.
Among this crowd three current serials 'Karm Chand Jasoos', 'Vikram aur Betaal'
and 'Panchtantra Ki Kahaniyan' are worth a mention. Karm Chand is indian
version of Sherlock Holms, he in each of his episodes solves a crime. With his
rather crooked style of talking and his strange gestures, you might take time
before start liking him. 'Vikram and Betaal' is based on good old 'chanda mama'
stories. 'Panchtantra ki Kahaniyan' ( has potential for being translated in
western languages and being shown in these parts of the world.
In this period India's first TV feature film was also made. It was 'Janam' by
Mahesh Bhatt featuring Kumar Gaurav and Shernaz Patel. An excellent film by all
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standards!
Decline of Radio:
With the betterment of TV the radio seems to be going out of the households. As
per a study conducted by Operation Research Group of Baroda a very big majority
of the TV owning families were relying on TV news to get their daily news
quota. This study was conducted in the four metropolitan cities (B'bay, Cal,
Madras and Delhi) and in Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta less than 10% of the TV
owning families were found to be still relying on Radio for their news input.
In Madras this figure was marginally higher and rested on 12%. In my own house
once upon a time (listening to) 8:45 PM Hindi and 9:00 PM English news bulletin
on AIR used to be a daily ritual, I donot know if they are still aired at this
time or not!
Similarly, in view of Doordarshan's direct telecast of Benson and Hedges
internationals, AIR decided not to give any running commentary atall. This
caused a lot of problem during power cuts/failures and travel.
Films:
Very quickly. Rajesh Khanna is still fighting his losing battle. Anil Kapoor
and Jacky Shroff are the current leading men. Kumar Gaurav got a virtual
resurrection after his 'Janam'. Raj Babbar is doing ok. Mr Bachchan had a
successful movie in 'Mard' and he still occasionally shuttles between the
parliament and the studio. Leading ladies; may be Sri Devi is still on top (or
who knows!). Amrita Singh also got an arm in the shot by the success of Mard.
'Star Dust' is now published in Hindi too with the same name.
In spite of onslaught of the video, I did not notice any great sense of
emergency in the film industry. However, even big directors are now paying
attention to the TV as a more convenient medium of expression.
Family Welfare:
Family planning seems to be a top priority of the current government and those
who can get close to the Medical and Administrative circles at the district
level can notice a clear air of urgency over there. I would rate the current FW
drive as semi-voluntary, in that, very few people walk in the hospital to get
an operation but at the same time no one is handcuffed and brought to the
hospital to be operated (as, allegedly, happened during 75-77). A great amount
of campaigning, monetary incentives, village level pressure goes behind each
operation. Public awareness for a negative or zero growth rate of population
seems to be, as ever, missing.
Tourism:
India is getting outward bound. It is not difficult to see advertisements of n
days and (n-1) night tours for (100*m-1) rupees to some fancy land in daily
newpapers and magazines. Vayudoot seems to be doing a good job as a support
airline. They fly to as small destinations as Haridwar and Dehradun. They
go up north, down south and remotest far east. It seems that air travel will
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become affordable to atleast a little larger section of our population in not
too far a future.
Rajiv Gandhi went for a Reagan style 'private vacation' (a couple of days, if
not a week,long) to a virtually unknown national park in Rajasthan (Ranthumbor-
sorry for possibly incorrect spelling) with his family and friends (who else
but Mr. Amitabh Bachchan). And 'to protect the environment' the party refused
a generator set and managed with only lanterns. Good God. After RG's visit
Ranthumbor observed a change of fate. The tourist traffic to that national park
increased many folds.
Magazines:
Magazine boom started many years ago and is still going on. The book stalls are
loaded with colorful covers of English, Hindi and regioanal magazines. One
magazine to take note of was 'Frontline'. It is a news magazine from Hindu
publishing group of Madras and is famous for the quality of it beautiful color
photographs. It is not yet a threat of India Taday, nevertheless it maintained
a graceful existence.
This boom has also given birth to several substandard magazines. Yesterday's
freelancers have become today's editors. One such magazine that I read cover to
cover to enjoy its editorial flaws was 'Savvy' a women's magazine editted by
Ingrid Albuquerque. A 'Woman of the Month story', a story on a child rape case
and a story on a 'young woman entrepreneur' and I bet you have a brand new
magazine.
An interesting episode about this. At Kanpur Railway station I asked the
A.H.Wheeler agent to give me an English Magazine of less than 5 bucks or a
Hindi magazine of more than 5 bucks. Only Sarvottam (Hindi Reader's Digest) and
Sunday (Editor M.J. Akbar of telegraph group) qualified.
Rest later. Thanks for reading, responding or simply deleting.
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______ vijay madisetti. vijaykm@medea.berkeley.edu