BY BISWADEEP GHOSH
More than a year ago, a story in Stardust magazine had featured Jessica Hines, a lady who had come down to India and was alleged to be pregnant with Aamir Khan’s child. It made news nationwide. Every newspaper made sure it splashed some bit of the interview in which Jessica did not come out in the open. Instead, what she said came close to suggesting that the baby was a technological miracle, in her words, “a computer-generated hologram.”
Cut to The Hindustan Times, whose Mumbai edition was launched very recently. Day one of the newspaper featured a scoop that revealed excerpts from a conversation between Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai. This conversation in which Salman allegedly spoke about everything right from his bedtime stories with heroines to his association with the underworld had been buried for four long years. Nobody had spoken of it, including Ash even after she went to town with her statements against Salman after the twosome broke up. But the day the newspaper set its feet in Mumbai, the interview emerged out of nowhere, making HT a serious rival of The TOI overnight.
Now, think of The Rising. Think of Aamir Khan with the Mangal Pandey moustache that he used for both playing Mangal Pandey and selling Titan watches. The Rising may be utter crap – it indeed is – but there is little doubt that curiosity about Aamir is at an all-time high. Because of the hype surrounding the film well before it was released all over the world on August 12, people are ready to devour any thing and every thing about Aamir. Right now, it won’t be wrong to say that Aamir is India’s number one star, which is also because of the fact that he hasn’t had a release for four long years. Film lovers want to see the guy because he has successfully tested their patience by remaining in hibernation for far too long.
So, at a time when Aamir mania has gripped the nation, comes another Stardust story saying that the son of Jessica – the hologram in her belly once – is two years old now. Jessica who had kept mum about the dad’s identity earlier, suggesting that a Pentium 2.6 could be the culprit, now says that Aamir who is alleged to be the dad of the child named Jaan actually asked to abort the child.
A couple of questions. Why did Jessica talk about Aamir’s fatherhood so late in the day when she had attributed the child’s origin to a computer once? Why did we get to know that a love child named Jaan existed exactly when The Rising was released? These questions cannot be answered very easily but, somehow, Aamir for once reminds of Salman Khan. And, Stardust seems rather similar to The Hindustan Times of the day it was launched in Mumbai.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
WAR OF THE TITANS
BY ASHRAF ENGINEER
I’ve been watching the newspaper war in Mumbai for some time now. The market obviously had the space for more players, and The Times of India must have known for a while that sooner rather than later the ways of virtual monopoly would end.
But what’s exciting is to watch is what the new players do with the media space they’ve occupied.
TOI has responded by upping quality, adding pages, many of them for city coverage, and marketing itself more aggressively. Hindustan Times chose the silent, strong approach by not making a huge hoopla about is launch, letting its Salman Khan ‘scoop’ do the talking. It’s superior design kicked in to attract the eyeballs and it generally seems to have made a favourable impression as a credible rival to the Old Lady of Boribunder.
But it was DNA which I had been waiting for. A virtual star cast of an editorial team had been put together and crores had been spent on an advertising campaign that soon turned controversial. But I did feel slightly disappointed with the initial editions. Given the marketing, financial and editorial muscle of the Dainik Bhaskar and Zee groups, the product was as good or bad as the rest in the market. You didn’t need some of the biggest guns in the industry to come out with a paper that merely match up. I expected more.
Maybe they initially confused more pages with a bigger bang for the subscriber’s buck. I don’t know whether that’s a completely correct assumption. Yes, many do feel that they’re getting value for what they’ve paid. But as a reader of this particular paper you expected greater editorial quality and innovations in content. DNA disappointed not because it was bad, but because it was only as good as everyone else.
Having said all this, I must confess DNA is improving by the day and where it will eventually settle on the subscription charts will be interesting to watch.
The churn in the Mumbai print industry, I believe, is very good. The cut-throat competition will not only keep standards high for the consumer, but will also allow journalists options which never existed before. Salaries are just one measure of the rising stock of the journalist. Media companies will now have to go that extra mile to take care of them to ensure that much-needed talent is not eroded.
I was asked whether I thought all these players will survive in the long run. My own take is yes, though I think we will see, eventually, a dip in the circulation numbers. Right now there is great curiosity about the new products and many households have signed up for all the three big ones. In the long run, consumers will choose merely one or two of the four or five players in the market. That will lead to a plateauing of the numbers and a stabilisation of the market.
I wonder whether the smaller players like Indian Express and Mid Day will land up getting burned in the crossfire.
Bee Gee's note: Best known for reading books on the office staircase, my colleague Ashraf Engineer is optimistic about DNA. Even I think similarly, since the paper has changed quite a bit since the day it was launched. Sitting in Pune, one can see that the changes are for the better.
I’ve been watching the newspaper war in Mumbai for some time now. The market obviously had the space for more players, and The Times of India must have known for a while that sooner rather than later the ways of virtual monopoly would end.
But what’s exciting is to watch is what the new players do with the media space they’ve occupied.
TOI has responded by upping quality, adding pages, many of them for city coverage, and marketing itself more aggressively. Hindustan Times chose the silent, strong approach by not making a huge hoopla about is launch, letting its Salman Khan ‘scoop’ do the talking. It’s superior design kicked in to attract the eyeballs and it generally seems to have made a favourable impression as a credible rival to the Old Lady of Boribunder.
But it was DNA which I had been waiting for. A virtual star cast of an editorial team had been put together and crores had been spent on an advertising campaign that soon turned controversial. But I did feel slightly disappointed with the initial editions. Given the marketing, financial and editorial muscle of the Dainik Bhaskar and Zee groups, the product was as good or bad as the rest in the market. You didn’t need some of the biggest guns in the industry to come out with a paper that merely match up. I expected more.
Maybe they initially confused more pages with a bigger bang for the subscriber’s buck. I don’t know whether that’s a completely correct assumption. Yes, many do feel that they’re getting value for what they’ve paid. But as a reader of this particular paper you expected greater editorial quality and innovations in content. DNA disappointed not because it was bad, but because it was only as good as everyone else.
Having said all this, I must confess DNA is improving by the day and where it will eventually settle on the subscription charts will be interesting to watch.
The churn in the Mumbai print industry, I believe, is very good. The cut-throat competition will not only keep standards high for the consumer, but will also allow journalists options which never existed before. Salaries are just one measure of the rising stock of the journalist. Media companies will now have to go that extra mile to take care of them to ensure that much-needed talent is not eroded.
I was asked whether I thought all these players will survive in the long run. My own take is yes, though I think we will see, eventually, a dip in the circulation numbers. Right now there is great curiosity about the new products and many households have signed up for all the three big ones. In the long run, consumers will choose merely one or two of the four or five players in the market. That will lead to a plateauing of the numbers and a stabilisation of the market.
I wonder whether the smaller players like Indian Express and Mid Day will land up getting burned in the crossfire.
Bee Gee's note: Best known for reading books on the office staircase, my colleague Ashraf Engineer is optimistic about DNA. Even I think similarly, since the paper has changed quite a bit since the day it was launched. Sitting in Pune, one can see that the changes are for the better.
Friday, August 12, 2005
RETURN OF SOURAV
BY BISWADEEP GHOSH
Most in the media have problems with Sourav Ganguly. The very attitude that enabled him to build a cohesive unit out of a bunch of individuals – aggression should be his middle name, not Chandidas – has made him the media’s favourite whipping boy. Arrogant, presumptuous, egoistic: these are the adjectives senior cricket journalists use while talking about Sourav in personal conversations. But when they write for the print media, they seek refuge in what is politically correct, which is say stuff like he cannot play the short delivery or that he has been woefully out of form of late.
But now, Ganguly is back to where he belonged, which is as the captain of the squad he had led so successfully. I am sure his critics must be raving and ranting by now, snubbed as they might have been by a guy who knows how to steer the ship of a team but doesn’t give a damn to unfriendly press. Ganguly has built a team that the selectors know and value. The guy, in other words, commands the respect of his team which no other Indian player does: or can.
Besides, when Dravid got an opportunity to make a mark in Sri Lanka in Ganguly’s absence, he came across as a silent, aloof sort who was barely visible on the field. The Yuvrajs and Sehwags and Harbhajans whom Ganguly had identified and backed so well ‘need’ a flamboyant skipper to start with. This, they are used to when Ganguly is around. They don’t mind getting rubbished by the guy even if he himself might not have played well because of an innate confidence stemming from their awareness that Ganguly knows how gifted they are, and that he will support them when the chips are down. History explains why they think so.
Now that he is back as the captain, we will see a bunch of individuals play as Team India again. As for the argument that John Wright had said that he would continue to coach the Indian team if Ganguly stepped down, the fact remains that it was the latter who led the team on the field, not Wright. As for the theory that he cannot play the short ball, while it is true that he is vulnerable to such deliveries like most Indians, he has been able to score 10,000 plus runs in one-dayers at a slightly slower pace than Sachin Tendulkar. As for the affirmation that Dravid has a stable head on his shoulders but Ganguly is moody and tempestuous and god-knows-what-else, nobody needs to take it seriously as long as Ganguly continues to deliver. Remember he is the most successful captain India has ever had?
Most in the media have problems with Sourav Ganguly. The very attitude that enabled him to build a cohesive unit out of a bunch of individuals – aggression should be his middle name, not Chandidas – has made him the media’s favourite whipping boy. Arrogant, presumptuous, egoistic: these are the adjectives senior cricket journalists use while talking about Sourav in personal conversations. But when they write for the print media, they seek refuge in what is politically correct, which is say stuff like he cannot play the short delivery or that he has been woefully out of form of late.
But now, Ganguly is back to where he belonged, which is as the captain of the squad he had led so successfully. I am sure his critics must be raving and ranting by now, snubbed as they might have been by a guy who knows how to steer the ship of a team but doesn’t give a damn to unfriendly press. Ganguly has built a team that the selectors know and value. The guy, in other words, commands the respect of his team which no other Indian player does: or can.
Besides, when Dravid got an opportunity to make a mark in Sri Lanka in Ganguly’s absence, he came across as a silent, aloof sort who was barely visible on the field. The Yuvrajs and Sehwags and Harbhajans whom Ganguly had identified and backed so well ‘need’ a flamboyant skipper to start with. This, they are used to when Ganguly is around. They don’t mind getting rubbished by the guy even if he himself might not have played well because of an innate confidence stemming from their awareness that Ganguly knows how gifted they are, and that he will support them when the chips are down. History explains why they think so.
Now that he is back as the captain, we will see a bunch of individuals play as Team India again. As for the argument that John Wright had said that he would continue to coach the Indian team if Ganguly stepped down, the fact remains that it was the latter who led the team on the field, not Wright. As for the theory that he cannot play the short ball, while it is true that he is vulnerable to such deliveries like most Indians, he has been able to score 10,000 plus runs in one-dayers at a slightly slower pace than Sachin Tendulkar. As for the affirmation that Dravid has a stable head on his shoulders but Ganguly is moody and tempestuous and god-knows-what-else, nobody needs to take it seriously as long as Ganguly continues to deliver. Remember he is the most successful captain India has ever had?
Thursday, August 11, 2005
HISTORY IS A COMIC STRIP!
BY BISWADEEP GHOSH
I admire Rudrangshu Mukherjee's scholarship of history, and firmly believe what he has to say about the existence of Mangal Pandey and his actual significance in the the first Indian war of Independence in his book 'Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or the Accidental Hero?': "The reason for the attention given to Mangal Pandey lies not in the significance of his own actions but in the actions of the sepoys of north India who took to arms in the summer of 1857. Historians have assumed a link between Mangal Pandey and the uprising of 1857 and thus a legend has been created around his name."
To prove his point, Mukherjee talks of the mutiny in Barrackpore some 33 years ago in which 200 Indian soldiers died. But that was not written about till 2003 and here, I might add, because there wasn’t a single protagonist who started it all, and also since the reason possibly wasn’t as dramatic as greased cartridge with fat of animals that both Hindus and Muslims weren’t supposed to touch. Desecration that would have been, and it indeed was, leading to an uprising triggered off by a man (Mangal)about whose act and life hardly anything is known.
But today, all we can hear is ‘Mangala, Mangala, Mangala, Mangala….” All we can see is a short and well-built guy striding across the screen in a moment that glorifies his death as sacrifice which it was. We have been told about Heera, a sex worker Mangal is supposed to have been in love with. We have heard of Jwala, a woman Mangal’s friend who is a British officer falls in love with.
All of this, and so much more, has happened because of Ketan Mehta’s 'The Rising', the most hyped film in the history of Indian cinema. Now, we know that Mehta’s material is the life story of Mangal although what we do not know is where the story came from. I mean, the film could have been called anything right from Jangal to Dangal Pandey since reality is not the basis anyway, so why Mangal? Simply because Mangal is box-office material, misled as we have been since 1857 that a single sepoy decided the course in which the nation thought and acted.
There is some MTV style choreography in the film too, but never mind! Creative license means anything right from fabricating intelligently and distorting stupidly. Mostly, it is the latter. The film’s hero Aamir has been selling watches with the Mangal look for a while, but so what? If a modern-day Mangal had been able to defeat his rulers in 2005, so many corporates would have requested him to be their brand ambassador isn't it? The life of Mangal has been concocted with the protagonist’s name being the only real thing about it, but should that matter? Not at all, because some will go to see the film without knowing that the story has been cooked up. A few abroad will see it because they will view it as a grand Bollywood musical.
Many will watch it because they are Aamir Khan fans, and very few will give a damn to the fact that fooling around with characters from history and creating their lives when facts do not exist is a very bad thing to do. After all, Mehta and company have tried to make the most of the man’s name. That being the case, shouldn’t they have looked for facts if at all they existed, or gone ahead and worked with material and people about whom enough is known, giving some sort of scope for understanding the situations and interpreting them accordingly?
'The Rising', in short, is a lie. But there is little reason why Ketan Mehta and Aamir Khan will feel sorry about it if this fictionalised story of a martyr with songs and dances doesn’t capsise at the box-office.
I admire Rudrangshu Mukherjee's scholarship of history, and firmly believe what he has to say about the existence of Mangal Pandey and his actual significance in the the first Indian war of Independence in his book 'Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or the Accidental Hero?': "The reason for the attention given to Mangal Pandey lies not in the significance of his own actions but in the actions of the sepoys of north India who took to arms in the summer of 1857. Historians have assumed a link between Mangal Pandey and the uprising of 1857 and thus a legend has been created around his name."
To prove his point, Mukherjee talks of the mutiny in Barrackpore some 33 years ago in which 200 Indian soldiers died. But that was not written about till 2003 and here, I might add, because there wasn’t a single protagonist who started it all, and also since the reason possibly wasn’t as dramatic as greased cartridge with fat of animals that both Hindus and Muslims weren’t supposed to touch. Desecration that would have been, and it indeed was, leading to an uprising triggered off by a man (Mangal)about whose act and life hardly anything is known.
But today, all we can hear is ‘Mangala, Mangala, Mangala, Mangala….” All we can see is a short and well-built guy striding across the screen in a moment that glorifies his death as sacrifice which it was. We have been told about Heera, a sex worker Mangal is supposed to have been in love with. We have heard of Jwala, a woman Mangal’s friend who is a British officer falls in love with.
All of this, and so much more, has happened because of Ketan Mehta’s 'The Rising', the most hyped film in the history of Indian cinema. Now, we know that Mehta’s material is the life story of Mangal although what we do not know is where the story came from. I mean, the film could have been called anything right from Jangal to Dangal Pandey since reality is not the basis anyway, so why Mangal? Simply because Mangal is box-office material, misled as we have been since 1857 that a single sepoy decided the course in which the nation thought and acted.
There is some MTV style choreography in the film too, but never mind! Creative license means anything right from fabricating intelligently and distorting stupidly. Mostly, it is the latter. The film’s hero Aamir has been selling watches with the Mangal look for a while, but so what? If a modern-day Mangal had been able to defeat his rulers in 2005, so many corporates would have requested him to be their brand ambassador isn't it? The life of Mangal has been concocted with the protagonist’s name being the only real thing about it, but should that matter? Not at all, because some will go to see the film without knowing that the story has been cooked up. A few abroad will see it because they will view it as a grand Bollywood musical.
Many will watch it because they are Aamir Khan fans, and very few will give a damn to the fact that fooling around with characters from history and creating their lives when facts do not exist is a very bad thing to do. After all, Mehta and company have tried to make the most of the man’s name. That being the case, shouldn’t they have looked for facts if at all they existed, or gone ahead and worked with material and people about whom enough is known, giving some sort of scope for understanding the situations and interpreting them accordingly?
'The Rising', in short, is a lie. But there is little reason why Ketan Mehta and Aamir Khan will feel sorry about it if this fictionalised story of a martyr with songs and dances doesn’t capsise at the box-office.
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