Ravindra Singh Rawat: Metamorphing MEDIA’S Marauding Musketeers

For failed Buntys and Bablis, television anchoring is always an option. For wannabe Kishore Kumars and Lata Mangeshkars, Indian Idol is heaven. For bathroom singers who didn’t make it, FM Radio provides comfort. Dreamy poets can join newspapers; or write a blog. Driving them all are the marauding monsters of modern media; the super brand new conglomerates.

They say that nothing reflects Indian society and times better than those garish Bollywood movies. So once upon a time, you saw a Manoj Kumar movie called Upkaar where a humble radio announcer talks about war breaking out on the borders. That was then. Today, radio is symbolised by the vivacious and bikini-clad Preity Zinta in Salaam Namaste. You might just say, “Eggzactly”! Once upon a time, there was movie called Satyakam where a ravishingly handsome Dharmendra is an idealistic journalist. Today, the journalists are – (once again!) Preity Zinta behaving like well mannered Barkha Dutt in Lakshya, Konkona Sen Sharma in Page 3 and a pert and pretty Dia Mirza in Shootout at Lokhandwala. Once upon a time, media owners spouted socialism and justice in dingy basements while cranking fading newspapers. Today, media owners spout operating profit ratios in air-conditioned conference halls while cranking out spanking new balance sheets. If you had seen the Indian media sector till the 1980s and then gone into a coma to wake up now, you will be in a position worse than Rip van Winkle; so staggering, catclysmic and shattering have been the changes. Well and truly, media and entertainment is a sunrise sector that is witnessing unprecedented levels of frenzied activity. In print; in movies, in television, in radio and even in the overrated world of Internet. Statistics solidly back this buoyant perception.