My restless mind works like a TV set with multiple channels, as I begin this column. Unsure of how to begin, the stance, and mood to opt for. It is with an inner hesitation, caution, and humility that one seeks to tread in the days ahead.
For the medium has grown so huge in the country that it should dwarf any effort to encompass its vastness, its depths, its horizons, its perimeters. The territory of the television - that little box, is beyond manageability in terms of its impact, even in this society, regardless of any curtailing attempts that are being made. Needless to say that the impact is emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and so on.
Let me recall here, for it has some relevance to what one seeks to say in the days ahead, that I have written on television and reviewed regularly its manoeuvred content and stipulated direction, its value patterns, wavering and malleable, for a steady three decades plus, having begun in the very late sixties. In passing, one may recall that the medium in this country is now four decades old.
I have reviewed and responded to television, then only Pakistan Television, unfortunately but understandably more often than not, out of a sense of cheer, pleasure. But displeasure too. Deep distrust and disbelief, bordering on disgust, and meandering within the domain of disappointment. But never despair. For television, blessed be those who brought the concept into our lives, is inherently ingrained into the fabric of all human living. Or rather the human condition. It meets solemnly needs of modern society, and the troubled modern individual, be he in the developed world or the developing. No escape from it really.
Over the years it is essential to contend here that there has been a vibrant multi-faceted bond between Pakistan society and the television concept, one dependent on the other, and akin to the relationship that has existed between Pakistan cinema and Pakistani society.
Reviewing TV in those early days and until much later meant responding to a single channel, black and white. There was a potential dictatorship, or there was a "democracy" of varying degrees and dimensions, and all dissent even if not sharp, was generally suppressed. That's another story. With time, came colour, more channels and more bank expression of emerging opinion from a Pakistani society changing, and the family structure weakening, and fragmenting. With more time, came more TV channels, encompassing more of this society and its needs; and with technology stepped in Indian television from across. Then also came varying kinds and degrees of control and censorship. That too is a rich subject for another day. And television reviewing assumed a more serious, deeper role in a wider context.
The evolution of the television in Pakistan and its reviews (one is not very comfortable with this description) is indeed a theme that needs to be explored. It would yield an understanding of the ways in which this society functions, or even doesn't. In fact, the kind of television channels that we have available in the country (cable or otherwise) is a symbolic interpretation of the kind of a diversified Pakistan that we have. There is, in my mind, no doubt that as the number of satellite channels grows in the years ahead and mass media expands in this society, new issues, challenges, conflicts, and frustrations will surface. How society will enable television to function or how television (indigenous that is) will relate to the reality of Pakistan is something that is so thought-provoking. Grim and thought-provoking. For all the entertainment that TV seeks to provide and which it willy nilly must, due to the commercialism that is inherent in it, the point is that it is essentially a serious medium. It is serious business if there is a TV set in every home, and in fact Pakistani society has reached a stage where a home, (not family) needs two or three sets to cope with the options that come from so many channels. To that extent the family gets divided also.
Pakistani society or Pakistani culture has changed because of television too. Which is to say that the Pakistani family has changed due to the enormous impact of the medium, taboos and barriers, born and nurtured by tradition are being cast aside. It remains to be seen whether this change, rapid and invisible many times, will do greater good to society or not. It is, perhaps, relevant to quote T.S, Eliot here, from "Notes towards the definition of culture 1948". He says, "The primary channel of transmission of culture is the family: no man wholly escapes from the kind, or wholly surpasses the degree, of culture which he acquired from his early environment.
"It would not do to suggest that this can be the only channel of transmission: in a society of any complexity it is supplemented and continued by other conduits of tradition... but by far the most important channel of transmission of culture remains the family: and when family life fails to play its part, we must expect our culture to deteriorate. Now the family is an institution of which nearly everybody speaks well..."
Now what is the impact of the television medium on the Pakistani family. The joint family or the nuclear family. The disintegrating joint family, and the splitting nuclear family. As the TV grows, and speaks to the individual, other relationships stand threatened, frozen, deadened. In the days ahead this would be one of the dimensions we hope to focus on. And unquestionably the television drama or the feature film, or the TV commercials would be of high relevance. High value target, to use a current expression.
Perhaps the most important television programming in the last week came from the political sphere. In the cricket that Pakistan and India played in this country, and which the visitors won finally on Wednesday (24th March) in Lahore. Many questions come to the mind. What would have been the impact of the cricket played for peace had there been no television channels? Pause and contemplate. What if there was no live telecast, and what if there were not, besides Pakistani TV channels, other channels too bringing home the cricket match (no more was it a war and thank God for it) into your office and the home. Life stopped when the two traditional rivals played, and one message came through repeatedly that the winners were neither India nor Pakistan, but cricket and the people of Pakistan and India. Perhaps even the people of entire South Asia.
From the look of things there is so much mileage that has been had from the five one day matches played in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, that there is almost an element of a lovely fairytale in the entire series. To add to the cheer and the bonhomie there were the visitors from India who came to watch, and gave the cricket match and authenticity of a crowd mix, and the variety of emotive response. Amazing. True.
The more one saw of the cricket matches on TV the more one contemplated the India - Pakistan wars of yesteryears and it made me wish that all that is now part of the past. A dead past, that is.
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