The following letter was written to Shri Manish Tiwari, on Jan 11, one day before the Bigg Boss Season Six Finale
Jan 11, 2013
Shri Manish Tewari,
Minister of State, I&B
Government of India
Subject: Socially Wrong Morals and Behaviour Being
Justified by Bigg Boss
Respected Sir,
I wish to draw your
attention to the undue footage being given to the ethically wrong and socially
unacceptable behaviour of a Bigg Boss contestant, Imam Siddique, by the Colors
entertainment channel.
It’s amazing that despite
Imam’s aberrant behaviour and irritating actions, which often lead to his tiffs
with co-contestants, he has made it to the Bigg Boss grand finale. The Colors
bosses have gone out of their way many a time to ensure that Imam is not
evicted from Bigg Boss. They may be justifying their love for Imam by pointing
to his popularity among the audience. For that matter, a porn star can be more
popular than Imam Siddique. But, then we can’t show a porn star in action on a national family
entertainment channel of India. So, why are we putting up with Imam’s ethically wrong and socially unacceptable
behaviour? Aren’t we encouraging many ‘potential’ Imams to become ‘real’ Imams?
I don’t know whether the Colors bosses are trying to provide some kind of
psychiatric treatment to Imam by retaining him in the show.
For the Colors bosses, it’s
quite easy to preach non-violence and other principles of the Father of the
Nation by keeping his three monkeys in the garden area of the Bigg Boss house.
And, this preaching is just a lip-service, or for the ordinary mortals to
follow. Because the Colors bosses are free to show the violent destruction of
their rural house and make the contestants living there run for their life.
I vividly remember that in
an earlier edition of Bigg Boss, a contestant, PraveshRana, had in a fit of
anger destroyed the food stock of the house by throwing it in the house pool.
Then Bigg Boss had preached to Rana that when millions of
Indians do not get two square meals a day, you have no right to destroy the
food. And, next day, a lunch was organized at the house for the children of an
orphanage. Now, I think Bigg Boss knows well that millions of Indians also do
not have a roof over their head. So, is he planning to build some houses for
these people to atone the destruction of the rural house?
We all know TV programmes
and reality shows are a multi-crore business. But most of this multi-crore
revenue comes from we the ordinary people, who buy the products/services
advertised on these shows. The price we pay for the products/services also
includes the advertising expenses. A good number of TV programmes are uninspiring,
run-of-the-mill sagas of family feuds or the ‘scripted reality shows’. Some of
these shows run eternally without touching the issues which affect the man in
the street. One pines to go back to good old DD days when serials had to be
wound up in 13 episodes, and some serials like Ghalib, EkKahani and Bharat
EkKhoj introduced the common people to world-class literature in their own
language.
For inspiring people to
follow the good aspects of the Indian culture,there is no better medium than
24x7 TV, provided the TV channels’ bosses understand this.
Best regards
Vijay Chawla
