![]() ![]() Things were a tad tough for her considering that she was representing the emancipated Indian woman. ![]() A highly qualified person, she stuck to her line like a leech, regardless of what her fellow speakers had to say. The lady was no less, though she kept to lower decibels (then again, it could be that she did not possess the requisite vocal chords…). He also, quite annoyingly, grumbled and sniggered constantly when the others spoke! In the process, he lost the respect that age and experience should have granted him. (When will speakers on television realize that the idiot box is equipped with volume control? They needn’t shout to be heard!) He swore by the sanctity of Indian culture. The geriatric gentleman seemed to believe that his grey hair entitled him to shove his views down the collective throat of the youth. In the ensuing verbal bedlam, the moderator lost sight of the real issue, that of personal choice and public censure. There probably was a buildup of ear wax for they failed to hear each other out at all. They regularly fiddled with their earpieces which made one suspect an ear wax problem. The panel members talked all at once and then inexplicably fell silent, although for a very brief moment, after which the babble was resumed with fresh vigour. Now as far as television is concerned, the trend seems to be that greater the number of news channels, the more trivial the issues under discussion and the more raucous the debate. The panel consisted of an old gentleman in grey tweeds, quite the stereotype of the stern patriarch, a middle aged conservatively dressed and confidently bi-lingual lady representing the Indian woman, a suave hotelier from Bangalore and last, but definitely not the least, a representative of the Indian youth, an MTV roadie, a specimen (one couldn’t quite call him human)…but more on him later. Let me describe one such heated discussion on the pub culture which I happened to catch on one news channel. People of all ages, backgrounds, and sexes went on air to volubly hurl forth their points of view at each other. Last year’s furore over the Shri Ram Sene attack on women pub goers had yielded a bumper crop of panel discussions on all television channels. It vividly reveals the Indian speaker’s unwillingness to lend his ear to anyone but himself. The television camera amplifies the empty sound and fury of the Indian speaker. This habit becomes magnified in televised discussions and debates. As for politely waiting for one’s turn, whatever is that? We think nothing of butting in, of rudely interrupting a speaker in mid sentence or of expressing our dissent by out shouting other participants. For all our constant glorification of our venerable arts and culture, the art of conversation seems to have completely eluded us. It seems that we in India cannot converse, discourse or speak coherently and courteously on an issue. ![]()
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