Gone are the days when TV watching was a stress buster and helped one to relax after day’s work over a cup of tea, coffee or a glass of wine. Not any more. Actually I don’t like to watch TV at all. It eats away your hours and gives you nothing in return. We’ve become skeptical about the impartiality of news channels (which were my favourites once) in reporting news. To get enlightened about the happenings in the country you need to watch a channel with unbiased reporting. I don’t know if there is one. Sometimes I do watch BBC for a change.
The scenario is sickening in panel discussions. The debates have degenerated into mud slinging matches where games of one-upmanship and unbecoming pot shots are played ad nauseam. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Some like their own voice so much that they indulge in circuitous presentation and disgusting verbosity while making no point at all and compel the viewers to get up or switch off. You need to possess thick hide to sit through them. But those who’ve the patience to sit through such debates are intelligent enough to sift the grain from the chaff. They can’t be hoodwinked anymore.
About daily soaps -which are generously dished out on numerous channels- less said the better. They neither educate nor entertain. Look at the triteness of the story line and content. So regressive and obscurantist .Agreed they’ve given employment to scores of young boys and girls and oldies too. (Ammas and Dadus are in great demand!) But at what cost to the poor viewers? Marriages, Pujas, festivities at the drop of a hat, unbelievable and contrived twists and turns of the plot, extremes of emotion, devilish villains, menacing vamps and milk pure protagonists are the stuff upon which these soaps are structured.
The situations and characters in them have no semblance to reality. How ridiculous to see bejewelled women wearing shimmering sarees sleeping in their finery. Apart from conspiring against one another they’ve little else to do. For how long can you stand nauseatingly childish and repetitive fare? After watching few episodes of a select few, you declare to yourself, “Enough is enough” and bid good bye for ever. After all suffering your sanity at the altar of such tripe is no wisdom.
OMG I just forgot the so called ‘Reality Shows.’ Do they project reality? I watched the dance show where Madhuri was one of the judges. Dance performances were alright and I would say entertaining in the beginning. But the most boring part was, listening to the comments. It looked as if it was not meant to entertain but to turn the viewers into masters of the art form.(How naive!) Moreover the show morphed into circus acrobatics. There is surfeit of such shows and most are insipid and give a feeling of deja vu. And the results appear to be rigged.
The comedy platter offers a notoriously dismal stuff in place of an expected gourmet fare.The genre has lost its aesthetic vigour. The forced laughter of the judges is the last straw. The content in ‘Comedy Shows’ is disgusting, mindless, degrading and shaming our intellect. There is no comic relief worth the name. Such shows have the capacity to make dullards of us by nipping our creativity and blunting our discerning power. The more we watch such junk the less discriminatory we’d be. Someone has aptly remarked, “Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.”
Long back there were family serials like ‘Buniyad’ , ‘Hum Log’ and informative ones like, ‘Bharat ek Khoj’ and many more which were the darlings of the people and had authenticity and gripping story line meant to educate and enlighten. Sadly we ‘re starved of such quality products.
Our TV programmes certainly need overhauling. At present only moolah rules.
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book (Groucho Marx).
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Dear friends, what do you think of the role of television in our lives today? Pl. give your opinion on the subject in the comments below. Thanks for coming.
The scenario is sickening in panel discussions. The debates have degenerated into mud slinging matches where games of one-upmanship and unbecoming pot shots are played ad nauseam. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Some like their own voice so much that they indulge in circuitous presentation and disgusting verbosity while making no point at all and compel the viewers to get up or switch off. You need to possess thick hide to sit through them. But those who’ve the patience to sit through such debates are intelligent enough to sift the grain from the chaff. They can’t be hoodwinked anymore.
About daily soaps -which are generously dished out on numerous channels- less said the better. They neither educate nor entertain. Look at the triteness of the story line and content. So regressive and obscurantist .Agreed they’ve given employment to scores of young boys and girls and oldies too. (Ammas and Dadus are in great demand!) But at what cost to the poor viewers? Marriages, Pujas, festivities at the drop of a hat, unbelievable and contrived twists and turns of the plot, extremes of emotion, devilish villains, menacing vamps and milk pure protagonists are the stuff upon which these soaps are structured.
The situations and characters in them have no semblance to reality. How ridiculous to see bejewelled women wearing shimmering sarees sleeping in their finery. Apart from conspiring against one another they’ve little else to do. For how long can you stand nauseatingly childish and repetitive fare? After watching few episodes of a select few, you declare to yourself, “Enough is enough” and bid good bye for ever. After all suffering your sanity at the altar of such tripe is no wisdom.
OMG I just forgot the so called ‘Reality Shows.’ Do they project reality? I watched the dance show where Madhuri was one of the judges. Dance performances were alright and I would say entertaining in the beginning. But the most boring part was, listening to the comments. It looked as if it was not meant to entertain but to turn the viewers into masters of the art form.(How naive!) Moreover the show morphed into circus acrobatics. There is surfeit of such shows and most are insipid and give a feeling of deja vu. And the results appear to be rigged.
The comedy platter offers a notoriously dismal stuff in place of an expected gourmet fare.The genre has lost its aesthetic vigour. The forced laughter of the judges is the last straw. The content in ‘Comedy Shows’ is disgusting, mindless, degrading and shaming our intellect. There is no comic relief worth the name. Such shows have the capacity to make dullards of us by nipping our creativity and blunting our discerning power. The more we watch such junk the less discriminatory we’d be. Someone has aptly remarked, “Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.”
Long back there were family serials like ‘Buniyad’ , ‘Hum Log’ and informative ones like, ‘Bharat ek Khoj’ and many more which were the darlings of the people and had authenticity and gripping story line meant to educate and enlighten. Sadly we ‘re starved of such quality products.
Our TV programmes certainly need overhauling. At present only moolah rules.
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book (Groucho Marx).
*****************************
Dear friends, what do you think of the role of television in our lives today? Pl. give your opinion on the subject in the comments below. Thanks for coming.
Too good . I was smiling all along. Many of us think exactly the same.
ReplyDeleteThe languages may differ , but the local TV contents too are same. I wonder about the Dish TV . I did not get encouraged to get one so far.
Thanks,I could not help expressing my disgust at the prevailing state of affairs of this medium.The disenchantment had been growing inside me for a long, long time and needed an outlet.
ReplyDeleteHowever opting for Dish TV will offer you a lot of choice to be had, once in a while.
I keep contemplating to go in for Dish TV. But my family are discouraging due to mixed reviews of choices available in this part of the country. None of them seem to give proper service.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year..