After all, isn’t honesty the best policy?

Parliamentarians too continued to rave and rant about Sach Ka Saamna — but frankly, the biggest reality show of all is played out every time Parliament / State Assemblies are in session. Poonam Saxena writes.

Sach Ka Saamna continues to dominate TV, and I’m not just talking about Star Plus, the channel on which the programme is shown. Most of the news channels have had discussions on the show — is it against our culture or not, is it offensive or not etc.

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On Times Now, Smriti Irani thundered that it is all of those things, and more. Considering Smriti herself was — for almost nine years — part of a soap that showed everything under the sun, from extra-marital affairs to illegitimate children to second wives to goodness knows what else, all that sound and fury was a bit off.

Then, the VHP’s BP Singhal appeared on Aaj Tak, frothing and fuming so agitatedly, it was difficult to make out what he was saying. But not difficult to guess since, let us remember, this was the man who, after the Mangalore pub attack, appeared on national television and stated that women should not go to pubs to drink and if they did, they had only themselves to blame if men — inflamed by uncontrollable lust (come on they’re men, they will do these things, it’s natural for them) — molested them.

Parliamentarians too continued to rave and rant about the show — but frankly, the biggest reality show of all is played out every time Parliament / State Assemblies are in session.

We have only recently been treated to the morally uplifting spectacle of Mehbooba Mufti throwing mikes in the House.

In the past we have been seeing other, equally inspiring sights — pitched battles on the floor of the House, MPs and MLAs tearing at each other’s clothes and so on.

So really, I think we’ve all heard just about enough on Sach Ka Saamna and its corrupting influence. I would be eternally grateful if everyone could just drop the subject and let us (viewers) decide whether we want to see the show or not.

Since our MPs were so busy being incensed about Sach Ka Saamna, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d forgotten all about the tenth anniversary of the Kargil war.

But thankfully the news channels hadn’t. Most of them sent crews to Kargil and there were some very moving accounts by reporters of the soldiers who had died, of the bereaved families, of what had happened during those fraught days. (I liked NDTV 24x7’s Jai Jawan episode with Abhishek Bachchan — it’s a format that always works). But I can’t say I was wild about seeing Karan Thapar’s 1,500th interview with General Musharraf, rather insensitively telecast on Vijay Divas itself (CNN-IBN).

And finally. Rakhi Ka Swayamvar (NDTV Imagine) is eventually coming to an end this Sunday. Now it seems as if Rakhi may not oblige us by getting married.

After all that talk about how she’s going to look even more beautiful than Aishwarya Rai on her wedding day and how she’s going to invite the media to come and gawk at her mehndi and lehnga and jewellery, this is a big disappointment.

Come on Rakhi, just do it. Just think of the ratings.