It all began with President Narayanan breaking with Independence Day custom by giving an exclusive TV interview to one journalist instead of reading out an address. The next day Prime Minister Vajpayee kept his appointment with tradition by speaking from the Red Fort. He did stumble though, lose his balance and alight from the car with only one shoe on. None of which you saw on Doordarshan's live telecast that morning (or in the news later that night) because it had thoughtfully focussed its attention elsewhere.

STAR allowed their finer feelings to prevail too (or was it their fine political sense?). They didn't show `The Fall' either. Zee did a story which showed the Prime Minister not quite in his element, without one shoe andunsteady on his feet.

Meanwhile, over the same weekend, President Clinton's imminent fall from grace was discussed in microscopic detail and then some. On Monday (Tuesday for us), he confessed on live television before the entire world that he had enjoyed ``inappropriate'' pleasures with Monica Lewinsky. That's not the way he put, but that is what it amounted to. And after him, the pack: journalists, politicians, present and past White House personnel, spent hours upon hours discussing his six-minute speech. They held it up and examined it through a magnifying glass as if it was... well, you can imagine whatever you like.. Was he contrite enough? Was he explicit enough about his relationship with the White House intern? Larry King (CNN) even asked disappointed Republican senators whether they had been looking forward to a graphic, oral account of what the two did, exactly.

Over the next 48 hours, we were trying to look through Hillary Clinton's dark glasses, study her body language and pin our eyes tothe President's....tie. The incongruity of attitudes: we don't show the Prime Minister of India missing his step, but short of showing the President of the United States in flagrante delicto, we've seen and heard it all.

Which is the right approach? Should public figures private pleasures or sufferings be the stuff of television -- or is it voyeurism, much worse than telephone pornography? It's a difficult number to call but if an event of any kind impinges on matters of state and governance, then doesn't it become everyone's business as much as his or hers?

Shots of the Clintons boarding the plane to Martha's Vineyard gave way by Thursday/Friday to US planes bombing escapades. Please spare a thought for Jayalalitha: she's obsessively addressing press conferences and though she's still there in the headlines, the events of the week somewhat blunted her offensives.

By Friday evening, the world was topsy-turvy: there was Protima Bedi saying life was priceless and she wanted to enjoy it to the hilt (Not aNice Man to Know, STAR Plus). Khushwant Singh, who was interviewing her, praised her unstintingly, and told her she would go on to achieve much, much more. With no confirmed news of her life or death then, it gave you the strangest feeling to watch and listen to Bedi and her undisguised lust for life.

William Jefferson Clinton should have seen the interview: she spoke frankly and far more sensitively about extra-marital sexual relationships than Bill ever could or would. And she described how you always have to pay the price of marriage for it (are you listening Bill?). She even propositioned Singh who gallantly claimed he was still up to it! She spoke so intelligently about being a person rather than just a woman. Her eyes sparkled, her laughter rang out, she looked so full of life. Oh dear. It was quite heartrending. You felt her shadow pass over you.

Last Friday on the same show at the same time, Persis Kambatta had occupied the same seat. Watching her, you couldn't help think that she was stillterribly attractive for her age. She wasn't as flamboyant or blase as Bedi but, in her own way, she was as interesting. She described life before and after Miss World, Star Trek and why she refused to take off her clothes for Playboy.

Two vivacious women, interviewed by Khushwant Singh reportedly on the same day, appear to have died on the same night. If that isn't spooky, what is?