When a Siritual Channel Breaches its Bunds

 When a Spiritual TV Channel Breaches its Bunds

River Cauvery and its feeders above the Stanley Reservoir appear to be in spate. And, so is the spiritual channel that shall remain unnamed.

This channel finds that there is not enough downpours in its catchment area for its spiritual messages to spread their devastations. Hence, it is invading the social (may also be called secular, meaning no religious affiliation, for want of a better word) sphere, but after applying revanchist cultural make up.

Yes, you read it right. This particular spiritual channel is more than that. In almost everything it broadcasts there is a flavour of cultural revanchism–been there, done that with a yearning to go back to those Golden Ages of the long gone past. And, in the particular aspect I am going to talk about, it does not go back as far back, no more than a hundred years.

There is a Tamil movie (1960s vintage) song filmed on the heroine that goes something like, “When a girl/lady thinks of a boy/gentleman [in that way], what happens?” to which her lover (as imagined by the lass) sings, “Love happens!” These lines, a so-called Bharatanatyam dancer tries to give a visual imagery to through her dance moves in the program on the so-called spiritual TV channel that runs every Sunday.

This is the problem. I have seen how, in the film, the actress sings and dances through the screen conveying through the short clip, and it is classic flirting, developed gradually as the actress lip-synchs. Yes, “gradually” within the less than twenty seconds the clip plays that includes the one-word response of her real-life lover, but imagined! Her eyes start flirting once the initial anxiety, quite expertly conveyed, has been quelled.

Most unfortunately, the dancer is unable to convey the myriad emotions her performance. I am sure the dance form is fully equipped to address the situation fulsomely, without a hint of exaggeration. But the dancer is definitively incapable of doing justice to the meaning of the lyrics.

And, more importantly, why was this song, so obviously carrying the meaning of carnal desire, is allowed on the so-called spiritual channel? It is all about seeking patrons from hither, thither and everywhere. No discriminating sense, and universal acceptance and fraternity, precisely the opposite of what its founding documents, the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and such claim! 

Can a so-called spiritual channel appear to be non-discriminating? I think not. Perhaps the channel senses a slow decline in its kind of spirituality, and feels the need to prop it up. Flood the channel with this faux spirituality. While Cauvery could shortly be in real spate, the river of spirituality can only be running dry in this space.

If only all kinds of flow of spirituality actually declined at a faster rate!

Raghuram Ekambaram