1:58 PM

The Rise and The Decline of the British Broadcasting Corporation

What did I have in common with Rajiv Gandhi, the day his mother Indira Gandhi was assasinated? Yes, both of us tuned to the BBC World Service Radio broadcast to catch the latest news on this ghastly incident, while All India Radio played it cool by playing classical music the entire day.
Those days Indians had limited exposure to the media and the BBC was often a gateway to unbiased truth and often wholesome entertainment.
This was perhaps why even now with the media explosion, when BBC announced the shutdown of its Hindi services there was a mass public outcry and the pullout was delayed for another year.(http://ibnlive.in.com/news/bbc-hindis-last-broadcast/146024-55.html)
I was a staunch fan of BBC World Service Radio broadcasts when I was a kid. I was often made fun of by my friends and their parents as the "radio kid" because of my habit of spending hours with one ear to the radio. While the newspapers highlighted domestic news and the certain events were often overlooked, I was enlightened on the war in Serbia, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the partisan war in Lebanon, the Israeli invasion of the Sinai peninsula, the Bhopal gas tragedy, and countless assasinations and rebellions.
I was for some time given the duty of collecting news that was to be read out at the school assembly by students who took turns to read it.
For this purpose, every day at BBC news bulletin time, I was glued to the radio set scribbling down the news headlines in a shorthand that I evolved and that only I could read.
My news extracts were for the most part of happenings far away from the realm of Indian interests and I doubt whether even a few of the students assembled actually grasped what was read out, not withstanding the fact that their parents hardly read even newspapers so busy they were with their daily jobs.
It was not just for the news that I tuned into the BBC. I was a regular listener of pop music programmes, dramatized versions of short stories and even quizzes, all on the air. Those days, the BBC correspondent in India was Mark Tully and he was a familiar voice on the news reportings. (Mark Tully eventually retired, has written a couple of books and has now settled down in India).
BBC had a special programme on Christmas where a popular writer read out excerpts of his own book for BBC listeners. Once such Christmas I was introduced to Frederick Forsyth's classic short story "The Shepherd".
I experimented with other radio channels too. But the Voice Of America was unashamedly biased to US interests and the anchors had an annoying yankee accent, Radio Moscow reeked of propaganda, AIR always began with "The Prime Minister today...", Radio Ceylon was just a golden oldies Hindi music channel, Germany's Radio Deutsche Welle had powerful radio transmitters that ensured a clear reception but lacked in content.
So it was the BBC for me. I owe a lot of my soft skills to that early on exposure to BBC newsreaders and anchors. While reading books taught me spelling and grammar, the pronounciation, the accent and most importantly the tone in context to the subject was a result of BBC's tutoring.

4:46 PM

Drab as the Desert

When I was young, I once came across an article in a children's magazine that posed this hypothetical question: "Suppose you had everything in this world, but no friends, no relatives - no one to talk to or communicate. Would you be happy?" The answer was obvious- that man is a gregarious animal, he cannot live without some color in his life. Even if he had access to the most modern technologies that made his life easier, toys to play with to spend time, machines and technology to do everything and anything at his beck and call, he would not survive without the need to communicate and socialize with his kin.
This I believe has parallels with the current peaceful unrests which started in Tunisia and has spread to other Arab regions like wildfire, to Egypt, to Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and to even comparitively stable Arab lands such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Oman.
Were these people short of wealth, or afflicted by poverty and the likes?
No, as we are told, these lands are some of the richest in the world, abound with natural oil. The citizens of these oil rich countries are in fact paid a bonus by their government for doing nothing particular at all, are not taxed, and handsomely assisted by the state to run businesses, or more correctly sponsor them. They just need to exist and the money comes rolling in. So what went wrong?
I have never stayed in an Arab household, and what little I know of an Arab's personal life is through books and articles.
But one glance at the national newspapers of these lands will convince you that something is seriously wrong.
When I was in Kuwait(here) I read the national English daily whenever I got the chance to do so. (In Kuwait, newspapers too are sponsored by the state and you don't pay a penny to access them!)
The articles I read were extremely boring, drab and definitely followed a pattern. One article mourned, "What would we do without our housemaids? How would we adjust to our busy lives without them?". In fact housemaids are the most ill- treated and underpaid labour force in the Arab lands. The article went on to do a feeble job of educating fellow Arabs in treating their house helps a bit better. And I could not help laughing out loud when I tried to imagine their "busy lives!" For I have never seen an Arab busy other than when he is pushing his subordinates to work harder, directly or through appointed cronies. Another article spoke about chicken. How could the Arabs survive without their daily chicken?! Well that was as close to gluttony as you could get to in public. And the editions went on and on in this drab fashion without a break in the monotony.
The only slightly colorful article I came across was one which described an encounter by a journalist with a supposed homosexual, when he hired his taxi. The aricle went on to hurl colorful epithets at this enemy of God.
What came across from these un-inspiring literature was that Arabs really do not have much variety in life. How can a person live I wonder, without enjoying the thrill of experiencing the success or failure of a business venture or a job? What is life without the so-called drudgery of work? If the government pays you to do nothing, what can you strive to achieve in life? I am afraid I am getting philosophical, but how can the brain work without stimulation?
The peaceful protests in all these desert lands are not against Islamic law, not against dynastic rule either, neither for a full fledged democracy. Just a cry to be able to make a choice for themselves; and the choice not to be made for them. A bit more color in their lives, freedom and liberty to have a mind of their own. And what did the unimaginative rulers of these lands do to quell the unrest? They quietly deposited an extra bonus into the bank accounts of every citizen of the land and cut off all tools of freedom and liberty, the internet, facebook and twitter!
Let's remember the prophetic poetry by Tagore, still relevant today for any people:
"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free..
...
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit...