A television channel that devotes a ?special? each day to ?cover? a non-visual, we-shall-keep-you-out-but titillate-you event, the wedding at the Bachchans has made a complete mockery of the message and the medium. Endless chatter by wide-eyed reporters, salivating about what may be happening behind jail-like gates, with the main player emerging periodically to bid goodbye to a guest or welcome one, has made many squirm. It has been one of the most ridiculous exercises in recent years on the small screen. Of course, film stars and their not-so-normal lives have hypnotised millions of people over the last century, and since voyeurism is something that TV programming panders to, an attempt to break through the lines makes sense. But to be out on the street with nothing to show, makes no sense at all.

Senior and junior journalists are going gaga about a wedding of two people who have kept the press away from their midst. These familiar faces of the small screen, professionals who are one of the pillars of our democracy, are busy falling over one another and all over the place with no story at all to broadcast on the familiar faces of the big screen, indulging in a waste of expensive airtime, handing free publicity to those who can well afford to pay for it.

India?s ?second family? of popular cinema?since clearly the Kapoors are way ahead as generational success leaders?has managed to get the press into a twist by not allowing them into their home. This, despite the fact that they use the press regularly to project themselves, their children and their films, underplay their failures, and much else. Despite ?pariah? status, the media has given the Bachchans a great wedding gift?free publicity for a mirage. A low-profile marriage has been turned into a high-profile farce.

Despite ?pariah? status, the media has given the Bachchans a great wedding gift?free publicity for a mirage. A low-profile marriage has been turned into a high-profile farce

Anywhere else in the world, the tabloid press would have done what some mainline television channels have done here while ?reporting? Aishwarya Rai?s wedding. This brings one to the real issue and to the endless questions that follow, about the sad superficiality of the walking-talking media, the dumbed down soundbite culture. Soundbites can be well thought through, logically framed and loaded with opinion and substance if the question is intelligent. Our questioning is na?ve, slipshod and without much background understanding ev en in areas far removed from ?weddings?. Formats and shows are predictable. Those invited to panels are the same, standard lot, people who will spout what we the viewers know they will spout. ?Take the easy option? seems to be the theme. And the easy option to fill a time slot and keep a non-event alive on their screens was to stand outside, across the road from the Bachchan home, and chatter about nothing, not even the gossip doing the rounds! Our oral tradition has clearly kept up its lead and is well ahead in the sharing of information when compared with the electronic media.

The other face of this coin is the ?safe option?. Do not be overcritical of all those who have muscle power in case their retaliatory wrath brings in its wake some kind of personal destruction, and do not fight the big daddies, political and other, who have their goons out and about. Attack the comparatively dignified because that is ?safe??they will not do anything that cannot be handled. Sadly, when programmes are aired these days, the bias is clear from the tone and tenor of the anchor or interviewer. This is the immaturity of Indian television, albeit now in its adolescence.

Shrill voices doling out simplistic comments batter our eardrums with breathtaking ego-centricism in half-hour shows that are dominated by the voice of the interviewer rather than the person being interviewed. Unfortunately, most ?hosts? do not grill the person who has been invited as the guest on the show, preferring to indulge in ineffective banter. Nothing new is unearthed. No one is put in the dock with the gentle deftness of a seasoned intellectual. News channels have become society and sports channels. Politics as live entertainment!