Pots and Pans have a great history about them. We
can’t live without them and they aren’t just things in the kitchen. Toddlers
and kids find endless joy and banging them all the time. Pots and Pans have
been used to celebrate the New Year
and people bang them to even keep evil spirits away. It would have been nice if
evil could really be kept away with just pots and pans. In the small narrow
alleys of many old cities in India people use pots and pans to warn the arrival
of police during agitations. Last year the Argentinians
had their own TeamAnna moment when their citizens agitated against corruption;
crime and inflation (see pic). And what did they do it with? Pots and pans, of
course! After all, in the global village there is something indeed that unites
all of us. Pots and pans create a lot of noise, draw a lot of attention and numb
our heads. There’s even a family song about “Singin’ in the kitchen, bangin’
on the pots and pans” (Youtube) which was a chart hit.
Recently on Twitter an interesting question came up
about our panellists on nightly news debates. Many didn’t know that these
panellists are not “free”; they are “paid” to appear on TV channels. Everyone,
from Swapan Dasgupta to Pooja Bedi, all are paid for
appearances and their views on TV. Let me caution you. There is nothing
wrong or unethical about this. If SwapanD writes for a column for a
newspaper he would be paid for it, so would a Shobha De. They can, of course,
volunteer a free-appearance. The exceptions to payments are usually spokies of
the govt and political parties. These spokies usually turn up to defend their
party positions on debates. This could also be true for others who are “defending” allegations against them.
But they too can be paid if there are featured shows like ‘The Big Fight’ on
NDTV. This is not true for interviews. For instance, Kanchan Gupta’s Twitter
account was listed to be blocked last year by Sibal & Co. So when he was
interviewed by some channels on the topic he doesn’t appear as a panellist but
as one being interviewed.
All our TV channels have a database of panellists.
Let me explain. Supposing a channel is doing a debate on politics the ‘booker’ (the guy who books the
panellists for the show) types in “Politics”
as a search-term into the database and up come Vinod Sharma, SwapanD and so on.
You type “Woman” and you would
probably get Ranjana Mukherjee, Pooja Bedi. How would you ever learn to even
outrage unless you’ve heard Pooja Bedi? You type “Anything on Women” you are guaranteed to get Mamta Sharma of the
NCW. You search “Elections”... Yeah
you guessed right, you’ll get Yogendra Yadav & Co. You type “Islam”; you will likely get Zakir Naik
and Shah Rukh Khan. You type “Expert on
everything” you’ll get only one name: Suhel Seth. You type in “Gujarat & Modi” … Oh that’s a very
long list and the specialists run into thousands to be listed here. You type “Unwanted” you will definitely get
MediaCrooks! That’s the way it works and it’s as simple as that. We do owe much
of your current-affairs education to all these panellists.
Then there are other shows aired on TV which are
from a programme held elsewhere. These shows too employ panellists and
speakers. This is where the usual TV host or anchor gets lucky. He or she too
gets paid like a regular panellist and the guests get paid even more handsomely
for their appearance and their lecture. This pic is from the HT Summit 2012.
See the nice guy on the left? And the nice guy on the right? Both get paid for
this appearance. The wonderful part is that these guys can be paid with YOUR
money. So next time you run across such a show on TV, the least you can do is
watch it since you’ve indirectly and unknowingly paid for it already. (Read
about HTSummit2012). So you
see, even if you missed out playing with pots and pans as a child or never
banged those in an agitation, you’ve lost nothing. You get it every night on
your TV.
If you think all panellists are greedy and appear
only for money then that’s being very unkind. All of them have other
professional pursuits from which they earn enough and don’t depend on the
panellist’s fee for survival. Do some people have enough motivation to appear
on a TV debate without a payment? Absolutely! Recognise the faces in this pic? All
of them are champions of justice and the fight for justice needs no other
motivation; especially when it comes to Gujarat and Narendra Modi. Most people
have no idea the sacrifices these panellists make and the suffering they go
through for you. Yes, they run into Arnab
Goswami frequently and that takes a lot of courage and sacrifice. So let’s
not be under any impression that a panellist’s life is easy. They also run the
risk of their agenda being exposed if their opinions and utterances turn out
wrong and their targets are not met.
Take Shabnam
Hashmi, for instance. Till the other day she claims she was being chased by
TimesNow for debates and
appearances. They even sent her pick-up cars. Turns out her outfit called ANHAD
operates from a premises given to a Planning Commission member (read Pioneer article). Now, that’s
not legal and may have consequences. She claims she operates from a “Garage”. Wow!
The late Steve Jobs has indeed inspired many, hasn’t he? Shabnam quit all her
govt posts after the Gujarat elections and now refuses to appear on TimesNow. That guy Modi may have won the elections
but imagine the loss to humanity. We have lost a panellist! You can read
Shabnam’s sob-story here.
I sometimes wonder why parents started giving pots
and pans to their toddlers. I am no exception. For all the noise and hell they
raise, these pots and pans seem to be a sure way of keeping the little ones
productively employed. These childhood habits are difficult to let go. So now
we have our panellists doing all the work. They create hell and all the noise
and they’re lucky. They even get paid for it. Nothing you hear on TV is free.
Nothing!
