The desi version of CNN-IBN

What the hell do local cable newscasters do with laptops

The other day when I had stopped over at “home sweet home” onward on one of my routine travels, I ended up catching an episode of the local TV news. The cable-wallahs aren’t to be left behind in this capitalistic economy. They are doing their best beaming live/deferred-live-claiming-to-be-live news on the local channel complete with brand-name, logo of the channel, ticker-tape of “breaking news”, local hair-oil ad-spot, a distinctly uncomfortable tie-clad unshaven newscaster (or a heavyset matronly looking one) with the frills of “live news” viz the laptop. It was funny to watch those guys reporting local news -- how a certain Mr. Amitabh houdhary won the JSCA (Jharkhand State Cricket Association) presidentship after having staved off a stiff fight from Some-Mr-Mahato, the home minister with additional sports portfolio in the current dispensation in power.

- I say it was funny because I found those guys clicking the laptop every now and then giving those Star-News, CNN-IBN kind of looks; you gotta see it to believe it…

- Besides the mannerism of the click on the keyboard was more akin to that of the guy punching in the details behind the railway reservation counter – they tend to use only one finger to cover the entire expanse of the keyboard ….

- I couldn’t help but wonder what it was on their laptop screens that they were staring. Was it Solitaire? Or the list of groceries they needed to carry on their way back home.

- Oh! And there was a serious-looking sardarji in brown striped shirt and matching brown striped tie (I’m talking horizontal stripes for both the shirt and the tie) writing furiously every now and then … alternating studiously between clicks on the laptop and furious writing spree on a batch of crumpled papers at his disposal.

Getting back to the electoral brouhaha, the "breaking news": Apparently the promise on which the incumbent retained power was that he’d been instrumental in getting MSD (Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the humble rockstar and poster-boy of Indian cricket and the messiah and idol of small-town India) into the Indian cricket team and how he’d be producing more MSDs (boy! I thought JSCA was untouched by coporate ethics viz. expressly taking credit for something which you had nothing to do with and had no inkling of).

Right at that moment the newscaster’s (yeah the sardar in brown horizontal stripes) promise of getting back after a “short commercial break” and his instruction/request not to flip channels (as there was more interesting news to come by) broke the trance that I was held under and I flipped channels as the ad with a local guy (The desi John Abraham … with long tresses, bike et al) and local girl (the gal with local John has to be local Bipasha) espousing the difference that “London English Coaching Class” had brought about in their lives and how they could now kanfeedently talk in Englees thanks to “London English Coaching Class”.

Small Town India is surely down the aspirational path and sure as hell producing heroes by the dozen. …. So MSDs, Md. Kaifs and Suresh Rainas are the new gods of this land!!!