TQ

When corporate MTV with its hard-bitten bottom line wanted to Indianise the channel what exactly did we get, some very exciting, clever, creative and cool promos that show we are like this only. Then we got Club MTV and the Grind, we got V’s Close-Up Close Encounters and its Singled Out inspiration with the uninhibited, sex bomb Jenny McCarthy, virtual or real accoutrements intact, pouring herself into a body sock. Isn’t this Indianising thing a bit of a mask, a chimera, a carrot, a snakes and sadhu wrapper, a smoke screen for the contents, a prophylactic drug that like Prozac gives us a feeling of stability, of Okness especially when we are reeling from post colonial hang ups.

Close-Up Close Encounter is a bit too much. Firstly I have not figured out why these NRI gorgeous bimbettes with surrogate or wannabe accents are chosen as Vjs. Or rather I think I cracked it (and get a PhD in one fell swoop). Its all got to do with the Grind and its Indian avatar Club MTV. The grind (circa 1996) is where we want to be at, Club MTV is where we are at. I watch Club MTV as a barometer (yeah…Yeah….) to indicate just how far we can push the de´colletage of our mores that surround our traditional/modern conflicts. I too have Pepsi bets of my own, see. Somehow the mask of okness seems to be to dance, gyrate, grind into crotches in the daytime. Yes its ok if your mom can see you.

Laila Rouass and Malaika bore-e-alis are the two principal contributors in this I’m bimbetter-than-thou. I find that the TQ (taste quotient) that ephemeral, nethi nethiness , that who-makes-the-rules, sometimes hierarchical, sometimes elitist, hard to define thing, The Thing. Most often you drink it in with your mother’s milk and then go to finishing school wherever that place in your head is, and bone up. You either got it or you don’t. Its that quality that uplifts. I use the ‘u’ word a lot these days only because there is so little of it around. I’d like to see MTV and V and Zee and Zed put the uh , buh ,  cuh ,  back into anth-akshari, use its reach and its ever widening foot print, its umbra and wonderbra, back into uplifting (oops) , with the most cross cultural, slam dunking, death defying, head banging, unifying phenomenon in the universe, music.

There I’ve come Out Of The Box and done a fillip and shown you my empty V. Can you handle it? Is the Flicks team out there? I got brief but I no got money. I am like this only……temporarily.