‘‘End of anera’’ (!?) read the headline on DD National’s Wednesday evening prime time bulletin as it announced the news of actor Raj Kumar’s death. There was a cheery-faced young lady by the name of Nisha Narayanan who delivered the bad news and the sad news with equal good cheer. Raj Kumar’s fans may have wished for a little more sobriety but Nisha was doggedly chirpy. In the clips that followed, several people spoke, but Doordarshan still believes in witholding identities so if you didn’t recognise Deve Gowda you’d have missed his eulogy.

Switch to the afternoon. There are well-meaning attempts to provide wholesome entertainment to children. This can take the form of last Thursday’s Kidz Island (since when is it considered chic to deliberately misspell a word?): a little girl, perhaps no more than four, in a lehenga danced to ‘‘Kajre mohabbat wale...’’, her hips thrust out like a dance bar girl. Next time it will be to ‘‘Kajra re.’ Should the public service broadcaster be encouraging little children to dance like Bipasha Basu?

Same night listen to Baba Sehgal singing at the World Bhangra Concert. Sounded like he was exhorting us to ‘‘Pump up your thigh’’ and maybe he was because his were, forgive, the analogy, pumped up rather like new tyres, or rather like Salman Khan’s biceps as captured on camera when the film star emerged from the Jodhpur jail. Also, the support cast was on the wrong show: instead of bhangra it was performing a gym workout.

... contd.