Archive for July 25th, 2009
The Sach, the poor and the voyeuristic.
I think, if I ever had a game show..it will be called XOR ka Po(we)r. Where I will be asking two seemingly disconnected questions..answers to which will be xored. And the best frnd of the contestent will have to predict the result. Now I have played it with my cousins..and its actually fun..
“Do you really like your car? XOR Do you have a girl frnd?”
is what I asked my cousin,
“FALSE”
“Now” I said to my sister…predict the answers…
(of course..it requires a basic introduciton to logic gates…and ya the Super bumper MUX-DEMUX round requires them to understand a little combinatorial electronics..)
Yes you got it right…voyeurism is in the air..as we see Indian adaptation of “The moment of truth”. Now I am not a fan of the show. It was fun initially when I caught all the episodes on youtube…but then it just gets repetitive.
When I had first heard about this thing coming to India..I thought the highest degree of mental suffering they can make a female undergo is by asking her whether she has secretly consumed some sweets before the karvachauth pooja. I thought this was enough to shake the grandma’s chair, make the Khap banish a couple from Jhajjar. What else possibly could Siddarth Basu ask from a conservative, semi-theocratic soceity.
But bravo. The format didnt adapt, the contestant’s put a bold face up..to sell their secrets.
First episode…and I see this woman being asked about pre-marital sex in front of her mother. The next day we see this seemingly patriarchal yet a philandering (as you would know later) man who has been into incest, extra marital and what not..
Addictive viewing is what all this is being called. And why not?? It is indeed. Watch them wash their dirty linen in public, and the “reality” makes it all spicy and juicy. Not to forget the hours of rerun they get on New Channels. Nor does the parliament wants to stop discussing about it. The secret voyeuristic in the Indian switches the TV on.
Ethical?? Moral?? Well..nobody defines that. The contestants are asked same questions prior to the actual recording. SO basically they are well aware of what piece of their dignity would get them all the gold. Actually its comparable to prostitution. The only difference being even this profession some times is born to a necessity, but what makes such addictive viewing is a minion of gluttony and desire.
The show is like snuff movies…or paying the poor for some “services”. yes..poor…with a a crore at stake…we more or less..become needy and greedy and all dreamy.
Do we need to draw the line??
Well..no denying that yes..people do have sex before they get married. Yes bored beta husbands do get their share of kisses outside the wedlock. The seventies had introduced us to a concept of birds and bees with vigorous vibrations of those flowers you see. So if things come out in the open, if we call sex just sex…the fundamentalists…(read hypocrites) go blah about it as if they never peed into pool!!
“What kind of soceity are we going to build?” said some chauvinist on this times now debate…
.do you think the show makes the soceity..or the show is reflection of same?
Chicken-egg and the eternity is what we might be talking about here…but the fact remains that they bank upon what all is already happening.
Burn you producers who say that its game of courage and redemption. Its not. It is addictive television, you make people look bad..yet no one can really claim to be a saint. You buy their stories…to make some money yourselves.
I think its very interesting to know different perspectives..about this show..and I think it is best treated with the same seriousness we treat Rakhi on her wedding trail.
Just imagine what would have happened if the producers had called the show “Satyameva Jayate”…
