Tehelga unearths fake celebrations scam

In the wake of the Indian team's victory in the under-13 Asian Kabaddi championships, a Tehelga probe might just have unearthed a diabolical media scandal. If they are to be believed, the boisterous pan-India celebrations that were telecast hour-on-hour by NCBC, Kal Thak and Soni-News last week had one thing in common - they never took place.
"I suspected something fishy because both the reporter and the crowd were talking in very general terms. 'Aapko kaisa lag raha hai' and 'khushiyan manaane ka samay hai' in reply. And I also thought I recognised a long-haired drunk chap from this year's Ganesh Chaturti celebrations telecast on the same channel" says Pal, co-editor of Tehelga.
This suspicion prompted Pal to put in place a team to analyse various news videos of boisterous celebrations and 'people taking to the streets' across channels. The team tabled a report in three days with explosive findings
- The top three news channels have been using the same scenes of celebration for the last 6 years. Kal thak has used one video a record 28 times, for Ganesh Chaturthi 03-08, Diwali 04-08, 15 cricket victories including the 20-20 world cup, the Om Shanti Om silver jubilee function and Mayawata's victory in the 2007 assembly elections.
- The said video was shot with junior artistes in Goregaon Film City at a cost of 3 lakhs in 2002.
- Aforementioned long haired drunk was caught in Komal Bar and admitted to accepting a payment of Rs 10 every time his drunken dance was telecast by Kal Thak. He has made a tax-free Rs 100 in the last year alone.
This blog got in touch with a senior executive of one of these channels and he had this to say, strictly off the record : 'We can't be running around covering various jobless people shouting and celebrating. We did a study in 1999 which found that drunken revelries were 98% similar irrespective of the occasion the drunks were celebrating. Let's say we do the real thing - get our city correspondent to chase down these celebrating idiots everytime something happens. Do you know how much it would cost us? When Sunita William's son passed 3rd grade for instance, Bombay went absolutely nuts in joy. It's not safe for us to go around interviewing mad crowds, leave alone the cost. So we make do with what we have. How does it make a difference?'
This begs the question to be asked - if India in fact does not care, would you still like to see reruns of the long haired drunk dancing with his co-goons? Tell us what you think.