Raja's read only memories

Bittu (Tamil slang for porn) movies in Tamil Nadu may have finally found a worthy competitior: TV programmes doling out sex advice. Prior to the advent of internet, titillation in TN would have meant ‘record’ dance bars – where women in skimpy dresses gyrate to item numbers in front of raucous crowds– or theatres screening dubbed movies of the soft-porn virtuoso Shakeela. Today, it might mean turning on the tube late at night to watch a sexologist hearing out woebegone callers and advising them on everything related to sex – from intercourse to periods and masturbation. What could have been a healthy trend gets reduced to a caricature, and even worse, a misinformation campaign. And that – for a state that has made remarkable progress in curbing the incidence of AIDS (remember, it was once bracketed with the likes of South Africa) and showed the rest of India how welfare schemes for transgenders could be implemented – is a blot of gargantuan proportions. The “professional” opin...

Households in Bangalore may have witnessed a sudden spurt in the number of Tamil cable TV channels – virtually all and sundry – that they have started receiving in their set-top boxes. There is a strong possibility that this could be linked to the upcoming general elections, by providing much-needed eyeballs to poll campaigns of TN’s political parties Tamil TV channel viewers in Bangalore have never had it so good. Over the last couple of weeks or so, the number of these channels has nearly trebled – from around 10 to nearly 30. Viewers who would have to otherwise restrict their options to those offered by the big four -- Sun, Jaya, Kalaignar and Star Vijay -- now have a smattering of options to put the TV remote control to further use. As if this weren't enough, any talk of subscribers being charged extra has gone unmentioned, at least till now. Viewers on the other side of the Cauvery have now started confronting hitherto unknown channels such as Sathiyam TV, Moon TV (...