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mansur
September 2007 
Irony..in English
Posted on Mar 17th, 2006
by 
musafir
musafir
The other day Shobhana and I had accompanied our friends to an awards ceremony hosted by the leading hindi newspaper in a major state of Northern India. The state in which they lead is known for its rich cultural traditons, riot of color, stunning palaces and folk traditions. But the whole event was conducted in English by VJ's in English with affected accents. The show was very professional organised and content was compeletely western, the dances, the music- salsa, western pop songs, english. The younger generation that runs the business is schooled in English medium, Western management principles and is focussing on revenues rather than journalism per se. Which is fine and part of that is to project a "western and modern" image for a Hindi newspaper. Part of that is to get a Modern, Host a.k.a Channel V VJ, in a modern language a.k.a English with modern theme a.k.a Western Dances and Western Music. And guess what I had exactly the same views of modernity in an Indian context 10 years ago!!.
Now the interesting part of the story is that largely Indian media got over its International hangover 7 years ago and went "Indian" in full gusto. Rupert Murdoch,Sony are funding a kind of Indianess that can be termed as regressive in the Soap Operas. Scheming women, melodramatic situations, plots that are out of tune with modernity. These characters are parcel of today's middle class and below India. For the young urban Indian who doesnt empathise with the potrayal of traditonal India as he sees on television ( among other inputs) goes modern and young which is largely defined by Channel V, MTV etc whose potrayal of what young is a predominantly a western Archetype. Interesting these are Indians running the media so one cant claim it is White hegemony. Again the complete picture is not explained but just alluding to the way India is evolving. I speak from personal experience because I pretty much thought the way I have described above till 5 years ago.
Now the real opportunity is to show a way that is rational, authentic, Indianess which is not prey to the blind tradition or rootless modernity. This movement should explore all facets of political, social, environmental and artistic expression.
Now the interesting part of the story is that largely Indian media got over its International hangover 7 years ago and went "Indian" in full gusto. Rupert Murdoch,Sony are funding a kind of Indianess that can be termed as regressive in the Soap Operas. Scheming women, melodramatic situations, plots that are out of tune with modernity. These characters are parcel of today's middle class and below India. For the young urban Indian who doesnt empathise with the potrayal of traditonal India as he sees on television ( among other inputs) goes modern and young which is largely defined by Channel V, MTV etc whose potrayal of what young is a predominantly a western Archetype. Interesting these are Indians running the media so one cant claim it is White hegemony. Again the complete picture is not explained but just alluding to the way India is evolving. I speak from personal experience because I pretty much thought the way I have described above till 5 years ago.
Now the real opportunity is to show a way that is rational, authentic, Indianess which is not prey to the blind tradition or rootless modernity. This movement should explore all facets of political, social, environmental and artistic expression.
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