Fish facts

TELLY VISION

Credible programming makes all the difference.

Sometime last week I watched a programme on the National Geographic Channel that concentrated on sea life — particularly the salmon — in Alaska. So far, my love for the fish has been manifested in my greedy looks every time I order it as a dish, waiting impatiently with a fork and knife while it arrives, either on bread, or salad or even as main course. So it felt silly to wipe away tears when the hour-long programme came to an end.

That’s when I thought of what Shailja Kejriwal, executive vice president, content, NDTV Imagine, had said to me, “Each time you offer credible programming to audiences, in any genre, it makes a difference. The trick,” she had added, “is in sticking to the basic content to a certain degree and yet offering something new.”

Kejriwal was, however, speaking in context of Ramayana (which we will talk about a little later) and its unprecedented success that spawned many mythological programmes on other Hindi GECs, including Ekta Kapoor’s Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki, which reportedly even speeded up its launch in the process.

Come to think of it, the programme on National Geographic Channel did something similar too. It translated the theoretical study of sea life into a beautiful story, one in which the female salmon became a strong character conducting her duties compassionately: From fighting grave battles with the male while also creating gravel nests, by removing small but heavy stones and other particles with sweeping movements of her tail, the female injures herself grievously in the process.

By the time she mates with the male, she is exhausted, the shiny red coat, bearing scars and injuries while she was removing obstacles to create space for her eggs. She fights for her life till the bitter end, manages to lay eggs and dies subsequently due to severe exhaustion. And even in death, she becomes useful; eaten by bald eagles, who in turn will survive the winter after they sink their beaks into the dead salmon.

Actually what National Geographic Channel does invariably with its programming is that it simplifies the theoretical process to present it in the form of fine storytelling. “Audiences,” Kejriwal had mentioned in our meeting, “have multiple viewing choices today and programmes/serials should absorb them.” She made an interesting comment: In the case of Ramayana, where characters are simply “good or evil”, Mahabharata, according to Kejriwal, has characters which come wrapped in several layers.

“Tremendous layering of characters can sometimes be difficult to showcase to audiences,” she had reasoned. “Mahabharata is a political drama with grey characters, not always easy to project on a TV channel,” she had explained. Interestingly, Kejriwal even had a choice to select between the two epics and she chose Ramayana for NDTV Imagine.

Her statement resonated when I watched the end of the Nat Geo programme where the sea life characters had hardly any layers to their characters. The male salmon was evil, as I saw it. The bald eagle, despite its need to survive the winter, was greedy. The alevins (little ones) only had a special appearance in the entire story.

The star of the show was the female salmon; conscientious about her ultimate goal and duty, with her beauty and grace, she emerged as a tragic heroine. Wasn’t crying for her the obvious conclusion then?