Epistles

I have a few questions. Watch this program and tell me -

- What is Sagarika Ghose trying to do ?

- Why is she trying to elicit from the panelists ?

- Is she just trying to spin what the panelists say to subscribe to what she thinks ? Anyone who has read her articles knows her views, her politics, her slant and its evident from the program as well.

- What was the question asked to Kiran Desai ? How you put the question can elicit different replies from interviewees ?

- What does she mean by 83% of the views saying that the west and east are on the colision course ? How many people voted ? 10 ? 20 ? 100 ? 10000 ? Is that figure meaningful in anyway ?

- What kind of questions are those – about whether A Roy and K. Desai were awarded the booker for their ethnicity ?

- What does she mean by “millions and thousands of viewers are writing in to us about racism they are facing ? Does she know how many thousands make a million ? And how many million viewers does CNN-IBN have ?

- And whats with that accent dear, that feigned sense of urgency, immediacy and emergency ?

- And finally do you have that job because of who your husband is ?

I have barely watched 30 hours of American TV or any kind of TV for that matter in the past 2.5 years. I find most of it boring. News coverage with a few exceptions is poor and unnecessarily sensational. I thought India TV was more interesting although over the years I have lost touch with the Indian electronic news media. But this came as a shocker.

Personally, hard to disagree with a word that Meghnad Desai or Mr. Bhagchi said.