Of Alsatians and wispy hosts!

(March 28, 2006)

Television is an amusing medium (calling it ‘powerful’ has become such a cliché that cliché has also become such an oft-repeated formula). One is set up to meet so many characters, whether they figure in their calendars or not. Newsmakers attract a fairly good share of eyeballs. Though it is the celebrity / newsmaker who is the focus of such a program, many times the person who analyzes, questions, debates, counter-attacks, occasionally passes an informal jab and sometimes connects the willing celebrity to star-struck or disillusioned audience also becomes a celebrity.

Let me walk you through two such hosts of talk/ chat shows who have acquired celebrity status and have become newsmakers themselves. They have been around for a good number of years and have created an impression on the audience for their ability to push their guests to the edge – of sanity, emotions or just foul temper.

Tim Sebastian, who is essentially the Alsatian of BBC, massacres the person in front of him (calling his ‘guests’ so would be so irrelevant!). Be it harrying George Michael about his tryst with Iraq or interrogation of Mikhail Gorbachev in Russian about Putin, Sebastian has always made his guests eat more than their words! But why is he part of this story? That’s because –
* He is the only one to interview political leaders who are unreachable by speaking languages that most of the interviewers are unfamiliar with. Russian and German or even Arabic – whether he understands or not, Sebastian succeeds in transcending all language barriers.
* He bullies his invitees and when they raise objection, convinces them that all he was trying was get to the root of the facts, so well that the beleaguered interviewees change their statements!
* He created a new phrase that’s presently doing the rounds – “A tongue is mightier than a sword or pen”.
* No matter how blatantly rude he seems, people remind themselves to watch him repeat and better his technique of delivering blows, while the people who sit across him fumble in various ways giving in to bloopers after bloopers.
* His videos make all moot court debating lessons seem lame.

To the other end of the hemisphere is the lady in white on the Indian telly who is the self proclaimed counselor of the high fliers – in-power politicians, influential diplomats, billionaire business heads and successful and still in vogue film personalities – Simi Garewal. That she has not chosen a colored ensemble for her chat show save white till now, is well known. But what makes her tick is her unique voice (she has sung the title track for her show!), which is deep and soft (she attempts to make it as wispy as possible for the right moments) and many times irritatingly sweet. She still attracts attention of the media because:
* She has the ability to get the mightiest of the mighty politicians sing their heart out and turn teary eyed at her words.
* She is probably the only one who tries to dig the emotions of her guests, when they inherit a big empire (Sample this - “Being the heir of million dollar empire must have been pressurizing”)
* Nobody recollects life’s misgivings like her! (To a 30 year old successful actor - “There was a time during your childhood, when you had problems with stammering … that must have been hard for a tender soul of 8 years”)
* There is no other person who says “Why?” the way she does, in almost all her shows (At the risk of sounding like a propaganda - you have to watch her to believe it!)
* She manages to be in news not just for the lack of variety in her wardrobe, designers and look but oodles of honey coated sentences.

No matter how brutally rude or excruciatingly diabetic a talk show host may be, the fact remains that if there was no unique trait in them, it would make news viewing monotonous. So enjoy the barks and subtle intonations while they last!