Now that's IT is over, I can give you the juiciest news that your paanwallah/ dhobi/ saas/ bahu/TV news channel have not been able to feed you: I WAS NOT INVITED. What's news about that, you ask? Think again. All the characters within slashes would have had you believe that they were part of the whole damn thing (I would have loved using the word 'tamasha' but sounds a touch too much like Hindi TV news).
To top it all, the TVwallahs even held programmes (refer sonia verma-hosted whatever-the-darned-thing-is-called) on HOW DARE THE B-FAMILY KEEP THE MEDIA SLAMMED OUT, or something along those lines. She went on and on, sounding super-sanctimonious, how the family never forgets the media while promoting their upcoming ventures but forget the tribe during such immensely important issues as weddings in family.
Ridiculous? Everyone thought so, but for the media. And that's a shame. Really.
If it's so much of a insult/letdown, why not boycott the proceedings? Why plant silly-looking (though with cheeseburger like smiles) and siller-sounding juveniles (a.k.a. reporters) outside the HQs (read B- and Rai-families)? Half the time they were so excited ("we can report XYZ have just left for the venue"; add exclamation marks to suit self) that my mother thought they were the ones getting married.
Not exactly 150 years ago I covered cricket for a mumbai paper (i don't do that anymore: neither cover cricket, nor work in mumbai) and -- this was just before the indian team left for the 2003 world cup -- we had a meet-the-press with rahul dravid. now, the occasion was launch of some new service from hutch (he still promotes the brand) , and the organisers said dravid would not answer any question apart from those related to the brand. so in effect, no questions about cricket.
What the whole sports journalist community did was a total boycott of the event// it was not reported -- not even the company launch -- in the papers that mattered in the city: neither english, nor the vernaculars.
result: dravid was forced to come off the podium the following day (during the official team photo-op) and explain that you cannot always take the organisers seriously// in effect, he was ready to talk cricket.
a small wonder: can't the same example be followed by the pious-sounding TV babes?
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