Reality check

TEACHERS call it the idiot box; youth call it the tube; parents call it an addiction; granny, a lifeline, but there are only a few who call it a livelihood. It’s a story of behind-the-television scenes, where fiction meets the reality.

Reality TV shows in India are still on a blossoming stage and mostly include the ‘desi’ versions of reality shows broadcast abroad. What’s amazing is the fact that despite the "copycat" attempt, reality TV is gaining a lot of popularity in India, bringing a sigh of relief to the audiences who are tired of Ekta Kapoor’s saas-bahu dramas. And with this new trend comes an end of the "emotional saga", as "reality" finally finds its place in the Indian mindset.

Omkar Sane’s Coming Soon. The End is an insight into the real TV industry. It brings forth the voyeurism and exhibitionism prevailing in our society. The book revolves around four friends, each of whom works for a different TV channel. Bass is the girl who joins a music channel after advertising, but her passion (music) goes awry as soon as she realises that music is played only between commercial breaks in music channels. Crass is the guy in general entertainment, who despite knowing the TV industry well doesn’t know why he is part of it. Grass works as a freelancer producer after he quit a kids’ channel. Farce works in a news channel and always has all the gossip about everyone. News, the sort that didn’t matter, comes naturally to him.

They all meet in a bar to catch up and a stranger Mass joins them to learn about how the industry functions. After all the vital discussions, the myth called television now has a different image in Mass’s mind, as he comes to know about how much TV channels understand their "mass", their understanding of rural audience which is negligible as their coverage. They go to a village only for sensational stories like deaths of farmers or Maoist attacks. They measure society by the views of the urban elite. For their talk shows, they bring celebrities, ad gurus, socialites, editors, writers, politicians, etc., who only talk in "stylish" English, but now the "mass" understands that it’s all about Mont Blanc using Gandhi’s image.

All in all, the trick of the trade is simple, every emotion—fear, guilt, suspicion and happiness—becomes a commodity and commodities become stories o n screen. Commodities are created and sidelined in no time in the television industry and the book exposes the truth behind the empty castle of today’s TV world.