Opinion In the corner of a foreign field

No,you can’t be too careful these days. Small wonder BCCI chairman Shashank Manohar did not respond to any of the questions put to him by a persistent Times Now reporter with anything other than,“I can’t answer any of your questions”. Small wonder NCP’s Supriya Sule,asked by NDTV 24×7 what she would say to Lalit Modi,smiled,replied,“Hi”,and wished him well — oh dear,was that a fond farewell? What else could she have done? Cursed him for getting her embroiled in this mess? Nah.

It’s difficult to believe what you hear on television these days. You are so befuddled by the sheer volume and speed of apparent developments and television’s relentless commentary on them. We had yet to recover from the Shoaib-Sania match-fixing tangle when the SMS scandal — as India TV delightfully referred to the Shashi-Modi-Sunanda affair — was breaking sweat across channels — and it had nothing to do with the heat wave.

In the last ten days,the facts and fiction surrounding the three,the IPL,and the politicians have merged and occupied airspace like a gigantic ash cloud (all the way from Iceland?) so dense,we can’t see or tell one from another.

Thus,within a few hours on Tuesday,we went from the meetings of top politicians to the meeting between a top politician and top cricket administrator (fact),to taped conversations of top politicians with Lalit Modi (unsubstantiated),to companies in Dubai and Mauritius being used to launder black money (unsubstantiated),to allegations leveled against Modi in one English newspaper (unnamed) on his disproportionate assets,his “satta” betting,land deals in Rajasthan,match-fixing,to his master plan for his exit (speculation),to the discussions on the business model of the IPL with at least one channel claiming that the IPL was worth Rs 40,000,00 crores!

Figures,facts and fiction. The beauty of television news is that it seldom attributes anything to a source or substantiates its claims. It makes announcements and we accept them — with reports flying thick and fast,who can remember who said what when? That’s the beauty of television news: you cannot hold it to its word because there’s no evidence of what it said unless someone is taping them 24×7.

An equally (un)attractive feature is that it latches onto a story like a leech and sucks it dry — and then some. The whole of last Sunday was spent watching Shashi Tharoor’s car drive up to the PM’s residence,and his disappearance inside because the channels were waiting for him to resign — something the thoughtless fellow didn’t do till late at night. Arrgh!

You’d have thought the plight of over 40,000 passengers waiting to take off from India throughout the week would have been in focus,but with Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor playing Twenty20? Nah. You’d have thought a sudden shoulder injury to Virender Sehwag could have been the top story of Tuesday and the IPL semi-finals would have been the top story of the week (what an irony!),not to mention bombs at the Bangalore cricket stadium.

Well,what can we say but that you would have thought wrong.

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com