The Death Of Indian Cricket Telecasts

Indian Cricket Telecasting ,
1983 - 2006
Died an untimely death.
Allegedly driven to commit suicide by three main accused persons -
1.Excessive Sponsorship,21 ,
2.Mindless Competitions,45
3.Spaghetti Tops ,(sweet)16.
Last seen with a mumbling , fumbling , 'punny' , sardarji (previously convicted for assault on a parking attendant - with kicks and punches; now uses fast , meaningless words , expressions learnt by rote and brightly coloured matching ties and pagadis for the same purpose ).
Also implicated in the murder are 3 more accomplices -
1. Plunging Necklines,18
2. Extravagant Jewelery,43
3. Ghastly Make-up,33
All three of whom are known to work for an expert assasin - Ms Mandira Bedi , by attracting the onlookers' attention towards themselves , thus successfully concealing their boss' incomprehensibile, insignificant, negliglible knowledge of cricket.
All the suspects and accused work together in tandem , simultaneously ; to create one of the biggest blunders in Indian Television History , on the most inappropriate platform , a daily soap channel - SET max.
Resuscitation was attempted by Bhogle , Gavaskar et al ; however , it was all in vain . . . .
The last words , reportedly heard were "Hoo Haa India" (meaning and purpose not known).
R.I.P

© 2006 .No part of this article may be reproduced or quoted without the expressed permission of Akshay Gopinathan Nair .

That Familiar Tune . . . . Once again. . . .

I was pleasantly surprised to find this old song on the net - I remember, as a kid , it used to be one of my favourite songs on TV.And not simply because it had a very catchy , multi-linguistic , patriotic tinge to it ; but because it had an absolutely stunning video ! That song was "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" . . . One of the doordarshan-ised Prasar Bharati released National Integration songs that stuck in my memory . Another one that I can recall is "Baje Sargam Har taraf se" .
Anyways , after looking up for it on the net I found out that Mile sur mera tumhara was released in 1987 commemorating the 40th anniversary of Indian Independence .The amazing part of the video was the beautiful , yet simple way in which it captured the absolute essence of each and every state it featured - picking up famous celebrities from each state , combined with great locales , stirring music and vocals by stalwart from the field of music - the result being a masterpiece.
Its an absolute treat - The tall man manoeuvring his boat , the tibals dancing with the mountains of the north east in the back ground , Narendra Hirwani , Kamal Hassan , that tall thin malayali on an elephant , Hema Malini , Lata Mangeshkar , the punjabi family of 15 - all on one tractor! , Kapil Dev ,Shabana Azmi , Sunil Gavaskar running with the flame torch in the rain , Amitabh Bachchan , Jitendra with Mithun ! , the metro of Kolkata , Mario Miranda painting a landscape in Goa , and finally the Tricoloured kids coming in running from three different directions (remember the sardar kid wearing a saffron pagadi?!) . . .with the music building up into a crescendo and finally merging in with Jana Gana Mana You could
feel the goosebumps and the lump in the throat as you watch the video . .As kids , we obviously couldnt have appreciated the finer points of this song but there was something in it that made us fall in love with it and watch it over and over again each time it was aired on DD.
The newer National Integration promotional videos aired on TV with all maestros singing a few lines each of the national anthem on an A R Rahman composed background score and video shot in Ladakh is indeed good , but , not a patch on Mile Sur.. -(Sigh!) They don't make 'em like this anymore . . . .

The link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7OkWpfTz1U&mode=related&search


© 2006 .No part of this article may be reproduced or quoted without the expressed permission of Akshay Gopinathan Nair .