Blame it on Ratings!

I was channel surfing the other day hoping to find something worthwhile on television. It’s been a while since we have seen any good program on TV. I sometimes really wonder how housewives go through the ordeal of saas-bahu saga and go all over it again on a different channel, different time. A look at the program title and you know that “Oh! I know what happens” Become so formulaic these days.

So while I was hesitant and quite concerned with the same concept being applied to reality television. I was thinking no different.

The list is really endless and mindless…

• Jhalak dikhlajaa
• Jodi no. 1
• Chota packet, bada dhamaal
• Dance India dance
• Zara nach ke dikha
• Aaja mahi vey

So without any hopes to find great expectations, I kept surfing and suddenly there this famous person whose image flashed like a 1000 watt light bulb. It was so good to see him after a long time…

Let me just take you down the memory lane… and his body of work… above all his contribution to India…

“MsoNormal” style=”margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;”>Rewind…

Born September 24, 1950, Patiala, India is a former Indian cricketer (1969-1989) and current cricket analyst. He is commonly known as “Jimmy”. He is the son of Lala Amarnath, the first post-independence captain of India. His brother Surinder Amarnath was a Test player. His brother Rajinder Amarnath is a former first class cricket and current cricket

Yes, I am talking about none other than Mohinder Amarnath who made his debut against Australia at Chennai in December 1969.

He was seen, in the latter part of his career, as the finest Indian batsman against express pace. Both Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall have praised his batsmanship, courage and ability to endure and master pain. In 1982-83 Mohinder played 11 test matches against Pakistan (5) and the West Indies (6) and scored over 1000 runs in the two series. In his “Idols”, Sunil Gavaskar described Mohinder as the finest batsman in the world.

He made his first test century at Perth at the WACA (the fastest and bounciest wicket in the world) batting against Jeff Thomson at his fastest. He followed this test century with another 10 against top class fast bowling.

Imran Khan regarded him so highly that in his “All Round View” he went on record to say that in the 1982-83 season, Mohinder was quite simply the best batsman in the world. Imran further went on to state that Mohinder should have played non-stop for India right from his debut in 1969 to the time he retired. Mohinder never had a steady place in the Indian test side. Others would play much worse than he did and never be dropped.

Mohinder is known as the come back man of Indian cricket. During his two decades at the top, he was dropped from the Indian side on several occasions and every time he fought his way back with sterling performances. After his debut series he had to wait until 1975 to make it into the team.

Mohinder made his debut in 1969 as a quick-bowling all rounder but at his peak, he was a top order batsman who always played at No. 3 for India. He was also handy with the ball, swinging and cutting the ball with great skill and control.

Mohinder Amarnath played 69 Tests scoring 4,378 runs at an batting average of 42.50, with 11 hundreds and 24 fifties, and claimed 32 wickets at a bowling average of 55.68 apiece. In 85 One Day Internationals, he scored 1,924 runs at an average of 30.53 and a highest score of 102 n.o. and claimed 46 wickets at 42.84 apiece.

Mohinder Amarnath is known for his legendary performance in the 1983 Cricket World Cup. He was awarded “Man of the Match” in the finals and semi-finals, having led India to their first ever one-day international title.

In the semi-finals against England his accurate seam bowling fetched him the top-order wickets of David Gower and Mike Gatting. He gave away only 27 runs in his 12 overs, for an average of 2.25 an over, the lowest among all Indian bowlers. Returning to bat, he scored 46 runs to give India a solid start. He was named the Man of the Match.

Such was the legend called “Mohinder Amarnath”

Cut to present…

But wait, wait, wait, wait… what’s this dude doin’ on this channel… I mean Sony TV

Imagine, the guy who in every sense did India proud is on a dance program. Oh! Maybe he’s one of the judges, (What? He’s miles away from dancing. How can he be a judge?) There were already 3 ladies (Saroj Khan… looks like shes running out of film offers, Juhi-one wonders how she was a leading lady when all she does these days is throw a wooden face on viewers like us and then there’s Vaibhavi Merchant)

 Whaaaat? Mohinder is one of the dancing participants? How can that be?

Then the program unfolded… some stupid God forsaken scenes, cries, gossips, hot news… you name it and you got it!

One cannot believe what’s happening on television these days. The bucks are so big, saaley Gadhey ko bhi baap bana denge (Even donkeys will be treated like dads!) But alas, in this case Mohinder was turned out to be the former one! Did he have to accept to do this? I am sure the answer would be no!

And then you guess what? There was another personality…

He started his education in St. Xaviers School, Pakyong, East Sikkim and won a eventually Scholarship SAI to attend the Tashi Namgyal Academy in Gangtok. He went on to play for several school and local clubs in his home state of Sikkim. A stellar performance at the 1992 Subroto Cup brought him to the notice of the football establishment. Former India goalkeeper Bhaskar Ganguly spotted his talent and helped him make a move to Calcutta football.
In 1993, at the age of sixteen, he left school to join the professional East Bengal Club in Calcutta. In 1995, he moved to JCT Mills, Phagwara, which went on to win the India National Football League that year. Bhutia was the top scorer in the league, and was chosen to play in the Nehru Cup. He was named “1996 Indian Player of the Year” and has won numerous other awards since then.

In 1997 he returned to East Bengal, and became team captain in the 1998-99 season. Baichung Bhutia has the unique distinction of scoring the only hatrick in the Derby Clashes between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, when he registered the same in East Bengal’s 4-1 triumph in 1997 Federation Cup Semi Final. In 1999 he travelled overseas to play for Bury F.C. after unsuccessful trials with both Fulham F.C. and Aston Villa F.C. with the move improving his conditioning and strategy. In 2002 he returned to India and played for the Mohun Bagan AC for a year before returning again to the East Bengal Club, helping them to win the Asean Cup (Association of South East Asian Nations) Club Championship. He signed up to play for Perak, the Malaysian championship club, from August to October 2003 and returning to East Bengal for the regular season. He continued to play for East Bengal till the end of 2005-2006 season. In 2006, he joined Mohun Bagan AC and has remained with them since then. He has recently renewed his contract for a further two years from 2008 to 2010 with the Mohun Bagan. He played in the Goal 4 Africa match held in the Allianz Arena, Munich on 12 July 2008 for the Edu team led by Clarence Seedorf and scored twice. He scored twice in the AFC Challenge Cup against Turkmenistan. He was also selected as the most valuable player of the tournament.

Imagine their contribution towards sports be it Cricket and Football respectively.

What in the name of entertainment are we watching?

Why should Mohinder and Baichung request (Read Beg please) viewers to send SMS to make them win the title. (Hi, I am Mohinder/ Baichung and you all know me… If you liked my dance, please aap mujhe vote Karen. Aap SMS karenge toh main aur dance kar sakoonga) What nonsense is this? What is their problem? Money? Have they themselves gone down so little that they will accept any shit thrown in by the media to them?

And coming to Sony TV, if at all you want to cash in on popularity or whatever can’t you include the yesteryear’s stars who almost faded from public memory and get them to dance back. You think we as viewers will watch any shit thrown in our face. This is preposterous and totally unacceptable?

And then there was this brouhaha about Monica Singh Bedi who retold her past with full aplomb (Sans glycerine) so that the SMS can keep ringing in her name.

Her dance was nowhere close to a 5 (Out of 10) and all the judges rated her 30 (10 each) as is she is one of those Olympic Gymnasts who just scored a perfect 10.

I am a media planner by profession. I, at this point of time hate to admit it. But that’s the fact. We plan media where there is lot of viewership. We do a lot of research into what the viewers watch and build our media plans accordingly. These include just plotting spots or buying the whole program for sponsorship. We also take into account whether sponsoring this program will give a positive connection with the brand etc… But I can definitely say this in print here that had it been my choice to sponsor this program, I would definitely tell my client to withdraw from the program.

We are all to be blamed. The agencies, the channels, the viewers. There has to be a full stop to these kind of garbage. Just like how we have the CBFC rating system for films, likewise there has to be such rating systems for TV shows and programs. They should take into account all the factors and then decide what to be aired on TV.
I guess that will also put full stop to the nonsensical Saas-Bahus dramas which no way reflects the culture that India has (Yes it kind of boosted the rates of post marital-affairs, live-in relations etc)

I must say, I was better growing up with serials like Hum log, Buniyaad, Mohan joshi haazir ho, Mr ya Mrs, Yeh jo hai Zindagi, chitrahaar…. Just to name a few.

And those times never dictated the need for viewership… But these days you just blame everything on TRPs (Television Rating Point) and get away with it