| ஒத்திசைவு | प्रत्याह्वय | resonance |

One of the nice things that we get to enjoy in our rural hinterlandish life is that, there is no constant invasion of our minds by TV channels and their screaming anchors & other such asinine louse souls, no offense meant at my dear donkeys, of course.

However, one does get to ‘see’ some bits of TV here and there, especially when visiting other folks’ homes  – and sometimes I do get to occasionally discuss some excesses of the TV reportage with our impressionable adolescents at the school – now,  hold your breadth, we discussed the voyeuristic coverage (and self-righteous condemnations) of the invasions into the privacy of  ’alleged’ young Nithyananda (who was perhaps merely affected by hormones, like it happens to the rest of us) and it was interesting to listen to the views of the adolescents. Many of them had either seen (!) the footage or had heard (!!) the details of the frames from others – and, more importantly, had their individual opinions…

And NO, sirs and madams, we did not talk about the angle  of the  ‘consenting adults’ who have every right to do whatever they feel is right, as long as what they do, does not impinge on the rights and freedoms of the other individuals. Nor did we discuss the bottomless abyss of a schism that exists between the so called talking and their actual walking. So, please heave sighs of relief.

Our idea was mainly to discuss to media misrepresentations of happenings and deliberately skewed reportage. We may eventually incorporate some of Noam Chomsky’s ideas too in our future discussions, in spite of the empty rhetoric in most of his ideas and his grandiose theories with veritable holes (example: ‘the theory of universal grammar’), and the deep schism that exists between what he preaches and what he actually practices. But Chomsky is a reasonable starting point. However, the sooner one gets to go beyond Chomsky, the better it is!  (more on these and other stuff, later)

Now, here’s a very humorous ‘in your face’ kind of swipe against the news peddlers  by Charlie Brooker. Please ignore the expletives in his sarcastic takes, if you must.

The world’s most generic news report – Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe.

There are more such parodies off the same Brooker, in the same youtube page. All good quality stuff, strongly recommended.

I also recall that, in that nicely crafted film – A Wednesday – the film director Neeraj Pandey takes a delicious swipe at how the news ‘making’ happens.

Enjoy – more importantly, reflect!

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JournalEntry: 2nf September, 2010.