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| Lonely Lalu |
| Wednesday April 29, 2009 , Patna |
| Okay, I'd like to start this post with a confession. We, TV people, love Lalu Yadav. We love Lalu Yadav for very superficial reasons. He looks really interesting on TV (admit it, the ear hair may grouse you out but you can't take your eyes off it- are they really that long, you keep saying to yourself) and he's a funny guy. Everyone loves funny guys and even though his track record is a bit dodgy (talk about understatements) we indulge him for just these reasons. So, it was with this genuine need for superficial reasons, that we drove and waited outside Lalu Yadav's house. Pollsters may have written him off, Yadav power may have been replaced by Nitish power but Lalu will always have his wit, we thought. Ummmm, not quite. Naghma has interacted quite a lot with the honourable minister, so even though, he usually does not meet the media in his house these days, he let us in. As I entered the famous Lalu household, I had hazaar expectations. I expected cows to be roaming around freely. I expected Rabri to be nipping in and out, fussing over some of the children basically, I expected all the images that had beamed live from this household for years. I mean, this house has seen so much action, when Bihar election results were emerging, a TV channel was doing analysis and results live from inside this house (before of course, Lalu realized he was losing and threw them all out). Whatever I was expecting, I wasn't getting any of it. Lalu was seated quietly with his spitoon and a handful of men in the courtyard of his home. Everyone was quiet and so was our expected source of entertainment. Next to him was a large plasma TV which was switched off at that time but we were told, was on a few minutes before when we were beaming live from outside his house. Lalu, perhaps, approved of what we said and let us in but he wasn't going to give us the satisfaction of knowing that he was interested in what we said on air. We sat quietly for what seemed like ages. Lalu made some small talk - how hot it's been, how he feels sunburnt, the dust kicked up by his chopper and the poor people who stand in the heat to see him. Nice, but it wasn't making us fall off our chair. Then, he explained the change. The Media, according to him, had conspired to paint him and the entire lot of RJD wrong. He was upset because our exit polls had written him off although he was sure that he was sweeping the polls. I wanted to tell him that the media couldn't be bothered to turn vindictive against someone, least of all Lalu. I wanted to tell him that exit poll accuracies were taken with a bucket of salt even with TV insiders (after several faux pas) and that the media loved him, which is why we waited to so long to see him. But I figured that he didn't really want to hear all that. Lalu Yadav was just in a mood to vent. He said he had stopped putting up the funny man face for TV cameras - a factor that many read as Lalu's desperation. I don't know all that. What I do know is that, he looked like a man who was down and out and trying to put up a fight. There was nothing funny in that. In fact, I felt a little sad for him when he was berating the media and I said, the media loves you, he replied- no, they don't love me. Mr Yadav, I don't think you should crave our love. We are really unfaithful. We love you only till you make good TV. May be, you should spend this time thinking about why the people have fallen in love with Nitish Kumar or more importantly, why many have fallen in love with you. Once the voters come, the TV cameras and their adulation will follow Post script: Our wait eventually paid off. Lalu Yadav amused us endlessly when he visited the election bus and said, "Give me this bus for my campaign." Watch it on Wednesday's episode. It's unmissable! |
Sunetra Choudhury started her career as a reporter with The Indian Express in 1999. When she left to join TV in 2002, she was heading the Delhi reporting team that would bring out Newsline. After a brief stint in hindi in Star News, she joined NDTV in 2003. Apart from doing investigative stories, Sunetra has been covering elections since UP by-elections in 2000. While she followed the Congress party in Delhi, she spent six weeks in Gujarat covering 2007 assembly polls, apart from UP and MP assembly polls.
