A Nation of Voyeurs

Five years ago when introduced India to the conceptfeaturing Bollywood starlets and the girl-next-door.I
of a sting operation, we were all jubilant.It showed usguess the decades of prudish media coverage lead to
that finally transperancy was on its way.A verythis voyeristic streak in all of us.In all fairness,we
unfortunate Bangaru Laxman was caught with hiscannot blame the media agencies alone for this turn
hand in the cookie jar.And something that we hadof events, as they just supply the public's demand.
always known was proved yet again,namely,politiciansOur nation stands at this critical juncture in History
are corrupt.But soon these optimistic musings werewith increasing global clout and also increasing global
killed when most of those implicated by the stingaspirations of its citizens.But as the values subscribed
operation continued their careers in activeto by the mass media change, the public perceptions
politics.Tehelka, just as its name implied, had startedare confusingly muddled.This is definitely not the face
the age of sensationalism although accountability stillof the Brave New World.Page 3 culture is well and
seemed elusive.Media gurus and spinmasters realisedgood, but I hope we come to realise that there is a
that the Indian psyche loved this concept of a sneakfine line between Celebrity worship and outright
peek.This lead to many scandals which werevoyeurism.The only thing the Tehelka sting operation
bordering on obscenity and definitely in the realm ofgave birth to was poor standards in journalism and of
bad taste.From sting operations on B-gradecourse provided a means for Tarun Tejpal to gain
Bollywood character artistes to unknown televisionenough prominence to let loose his enormously poor
artists, we saw it all.News channels covered thesecontribution to literature, Alchemy of Desire.The
faux pas of the relatively rich and famous as thoughauthour is a final year student in a prominent
it was credible news.Obscene MMS's regularly pop upengineering institution.