Westwing and us…bring it to Indian prime time!! Pt 2.
February 10th, 2007 | by Ridhima Suri |A dear and concerned friend of mine called me from East Coast this morning. We discussed the blog which I had posted recently titled “Westwing and Us : Bring it to Indian Prime Time!!” The following is part of our chit-chat which I am going to share with you. I have tried my level best to be honest and careful with words, but if there is a mistake, do forgive me.
She said, ”You write very well and you should pursue it further”.
I said, ”Thanks for the encouragement! I generally, write for my family and few close friends only”. I was blushing, happy. This was certainly a GOOD MORNING…
Then we came to the point.
She said,”This is TV fiction and it is not reality. It is a tendency here to glorify things n stuff! Back in India, systems are so tough. There is bureaucracy, red tapism and what not!!! And who would want to go into politics???”
She did have a point which was not new to me also.
I said, “The reason for writing a log on the serial was that there is so much goodness in this serial. And they potray it so well. It is not that the system here does not have its shortcomings. It does. But, it is always a good exercise to feel good about the good aspects rather than always criticizing the worst!! This is what the serial is doing and must say, it is doing a good job at it!”
She hmmmd thoughtfully.
I went on. I said,” After all, look at the power of mass media. If a sense of patriotism can come to us sitting overseas, would it not have some impact on those living in India? Besides the rampant bureraucracy and complexity, I am sure there is a lot of good work being done behind closed doors in every Ministry, be it Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of External Affairs…and all. Why not pause for a minute and post a positive picture? After all, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi,Rajiv Gandhi, Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajapayee, Manmohan Singh, have done some good work. OK if you do try to make their Balance Sheet, am sure they have done tons of good work in addition to lots of careless work too! But, why not bring and learn some goodness out of it? There is no harm in it………….”
I went on and on.
She did buy some of what I said but quipped,”Who will devote resources to a TV Drama like this when everybody asks for entertainment? Everybody wants commercial ideas, so who will take the goodness and patriotism thingie?”
I sighed. She was right in her own sense, but I was only trying to convey that mass media is a strong channel of communication and one possible use could be to show some political goodness!
I said ,”My husband wrote about Laloo’s good work in this very blog some time back and enlightened me about his awesome work. I was no doubt, impressed.”
She agreed and added, “Ya, he visited Harvard too and probably they are doing a case study. It is a general sense of amazement that he has done wonders in Railway Ministry in India”.
EXACTLY!! I thought. Look at how the media spreads word and impacts us. So why can’t this media choose to showcase more of the good work too??
I chatted a little longer, happy not to discuss gossip and domestic issues.
Our very own think tank at home!
PLEASE DO SEE……… Much of my thoughts have been coloured by what me and my husband think and discuss aloud while watching TV. Hence, behind my pen are my husband’s viewpoints too!!!
Happy Reading…..tata
Tags: Interesting, West Wing
