The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : One for the camera

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Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

One for the camera

Gone are the days when agitators used to get energised by inspired and soaring speeches of leaders during the course of a dharna or a picketing. These days it’s the television news channels and photographs in newspapers that have become the driving force behind these protests. If the photographers and cameramen of TV channels are absent, then the protests too lack in energy.

At a demonstration staged by a group of doctors in the city on Monday, the group leader was raising slogans against the government and was urging his colleagues to raise their voice to make an impact. However, the support from his colleagues was not forthcoming. Vexed with this lacklustre attitude of his colleagues, the group leader went on to say “At least try to be lively and energetic, until the photographers and news channels cameramen cover the event.”

At the recently-held Combined Graduation Parade of the Indian Air Force, the stunts by helicopters and aircraft drew wild applause. While the Sarang helicopter team drew the breaths of the audience with their range of stunts and formations from the diamond formation to dolphins’ leap and diagonal cross, the Suryakiran team were not be left behind.

Apart from the daredevilry acrobatics in air, they drew a special applause from women. As everyone watched, two aircraft, in the far horizon of the blue sky drew a huge white-coloured heart while another pierced through the heart like an arrow. One look at the beautiful women in the gathering and it was easy to say they were flattered. A new way to woo women this!

The recent inauguration of Hyderabad Book Fair was also stage to an amusing announcement by a media head. The CEO of a TV channel chose the occasion to announce his plans to begin a campaign for sanitation.

While the venue he chose to reveal his plans raised quite a few brows, the anchor point of the campaign sounded quite too simplistic.

The media man said that the sight of children and adults squatting along the roads or rail tracks made up a nasty picture, and that anybody travelling on the way can not open the windows of their vehicles for the fear of stench! What seemed to have missed the channel chief’s attention was that the elite sections who use hygienic potties only end up polluting the nearby water bodies, beside which a whole lot of slums exist.

It is Bush bashing at its hilarious best. The shoe hurling incident involving the US supremo by Iraqi television scribe, Muntazar al Zaidi, has spawned a new genre of Urdu poetry.

The Urdu newspapers in the city are full of it ever since the unsavoury thing happened. Poets are at their lyrical best depicting the ‘amBushing’ event. Sample this ‘Bushnama’ penned on the lines of the famous Ghalib ghazal.

Kahin izzat nazar nahin aati

Koee acchi khabar nahin aati

Jute Zaidi ke sar pe khakar bhi

Sharm Bush ko magar nahin aati

Rule breakers are seldom taken to task, especially those who break traffic rules. But when they are caught by the armed forces, they are definitely taught a lesson. This happened with a car driver who sped away at the MCEME junction that was manned by Army jawans near Lal Bazaar.

Even after a jawan held up a ‘stop’ sign, the driver stepped on the gas and ignored the signal. Seeing this, another Army official chased the car on his bike, overtook it and forced the driver to stop. The shocked driver was then taught a lesson on driving by the Army man while other motorists looked at him with gaping mouths. Hopefully the driver learnt his lesson.

Hyderabadi media is sure to turn up in full attendance for a varied range of events, whether it be a fashion show, a concert, mundane press conferences etc. But, when Loyola Academy played host to a Prof. Martin Perl, a Nobel laureate, the media was conspicuous by its absence. Except for representatives of four dailies, the usual fight for space to place the tripods was missing. Is this a case of wrongly placed priorities or is a ramp show more exciting then a talk by a pr ize winning physicist?

S. SANDEEP KUMAR, YOGENDRA KALAVALAPALLI,

SWATHI. V, J.S. IFTEKHAR, ABHIJIT DEV KUMAR,

D.V.L. PADMA PRIYA

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