Top memories of 2008 – Part – II
MEMORY # 3 (for memories 1 & 2 ) – Crime investigation by media on Arushi Talwar murder case
Arushi Talwar brutally murdered in Noida
16 May 2008, the young school girl was killed in her bed room in Noida, India. The police police first suspected the servant. And then retracted to say it was the girl’s father. Illicit relationships were not ruled out.
What unfolded later was something new to the Indian television audience, as each news channel (Times Now, CNN IBN, Star News, Aaj Tak etc. etc.) covered this crime non-stop for almost three months. Any channel you tuned into had the news and investigative (?) and intrusive reporting of Arushi’s murder and the various angles.
The hunger for being “me first” made the channels to stoop to such levels that they even started showing footages of cellphone tower (saying it held the clues for the last phone calls made by the murderer), the school where Arushi studied, the people who studied with Arushi and it went on and on.
The media chase of the car in which Dr. Rakesh Talwar was travelling after being released on bail was nothing short of Indian equivalent of the fatal media chase of Princess Diana.
For some weeks, it appeared as though there was nothing else happening in India. During all this while there were suicides of Indian NRIs happening in USA, MLA murdering his own wife etc. But, Arushi murder occupied the prime spot. I am still not able to fathom why? Was it Arushi’s destiny to earn this kind of unwanted fame in her death?
In hindsight, she got more coverage than even former Prime Minister Mr. V.P. Singh who died on 27 November 2008, ironically in the middle of the 26/11 mumbai terror strike.
It made one wonder if these reporters were actually imported from Scotland Yard as they seemed to have much more knowledge of the murder than murderer (whoever it was) itself. 24 hours a day for almost three months the banter continued and thankfully came to end by the middle of May 2008, but not before the news channels sucked out last drops of the blood by airing debates, sms polls and “exclusive interviews” of the father and the mother of Arushi.
Read this interesting article that I read in The Hindu newspaper on the media going overboard on this particular case: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2008062950010100.htm&date=2008/06/29/&prd=mag&
Memory # 4 Dasavatharam
Dasavatharam - - creating a world record, while touching some social issues and potential dangers from bio-chemical weapons
This long awaited, Kamal Hassan’s magnum opus released in July 2008. Why was it long awaited? Kamal Hassan was set to create a world record for maximum number of character roles in a single movie breaking (not overshadowing or erasing) the previous record of nine character roles in a single movie portrayed by his idol Sivaji Ganesan in the movie Navarathiri (9 nights).
Kamal Hassan made painstaking efforts to distinguish each role and based his story on Chaos Theory. Besides donning the 10 avatars, he also penned the story and screenplay for the movie.
The movie was a runaway success in the box office is not the reason why I remember this movie. It is because of the technical excellence to which this movie exposed and elevated Indian cinema to. We saw action like never before. We saw multiple characters portrayed by the same actor converging in the same scene throughout the movie. At times, one had to reassure oneself that the two characters talking to each other on screen were portrayed by the same person. Such was the distinction that Kamal Hassan showed in the movie.
Another reason why I will remember this movie is the amount of love / hate debate that it threw up on the internet. Be it a magazine website where a review was posted or a blog site where the blogger gave his opinion of the movie, there were arguments galore just as you can see in this place.
The roles of Kamal that I (and most others) liked were: Vincent Poovarahan, Nambi, CBI Officer Balram Naidu, Christian Fletcher, Iyengar Paatti & Avtar Singh though the other three roles namely Japanese Singan Narahasi, Tall guy Kalifulla Khan, George Bush (he did this with famous idiosies of George Bush in tact) were also played by him with echelon.
Whatever be the case, this movie is a landmark achievement in Indian cinema and will be spoken about even after many years.
Read the first part of this post here
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It looked very much strange the way some television channels in India kept on showing that news during the mid 2008, for around 2 months. Not sure if similar importance was seen for this matter in the newspapers.
Were there no other important (as they consider so) information for them to take to the public? or, were some other important (generally felt) information was not getting through television media in the process?
May be the father of the girl could be one of the most popular Dental Doctors in the country or the girl could be one of the most popular student scholars in the country for getting so much attention in the television media. But not sure of having observed any such information in any newspapers or television channels in the recent past then.
Hi Within Air,
Welcome to my blog.
It is an interesting thought by you. It is possible that this news probably was used to divert people attention from something else. We have to job our memory to see what was suppressed. But, it has to be a very high level co-ordinated effort to make all of the media (including print media) to highlight this particular case more than anything else. I do not think so it is the case.
I think the media saw in this case a good public consumption story since there involved a young school girl, a famous dentist in New Delhi and also there were glaring goof-ups by the Police.
Interestingly, about a year or so back there was one case related to some businessman in Noida who was killing many servant maids visiting his house and they found many skeletons in his house. That one was not covered as much as this one did.
Keep visiting.
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