By NAVROZE D DHONDY
Founder & MD, Creatigies Communications
This article should have been penned around a year ago, on December 16, 2011.
It was the day of the CNN IBN Indian of the Year Awards. The channel hosting the event actually honoured Amitabh Bachchan and the Sony show Kaun Banega Crorepati as winner in the Entertainment category. How it slipped my attention I have no idea, but I am happy I didn’t let folly happen two years in a row, as I watched the Indian of the Year Awards unfold last week on a nippy Delhi December evening. When the winner in the Entertainment category was announced, it warmed the cockles of my heart - CNN IBN had conferred the honour on ‘Satyamev Jayate’ that ran successfully on Star TV. Aamir Khan sent a message on video but Star TV CEO Uday Shankar was on stage with his team to accept the honour gracefully. In 2011, it was KBC, a show on Sony and in 2012, it was a Star TV show. Was the first instance a mistake, and the second an aberration? Was CNN IBN trying to send a message that it was above all in conferring titles like these to create winners in the space, the group itself taking pride in creating a strong brand like Colors?
I don’t think it was any of the above… I think in a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world where any opportunity to run down your competitors is grabbed with both hands, here were a few good gentlemen and ladies who put aside ego and rancour to salute competitors more like comrades.
It was to thundering applause that one channel handed over an award to another, and bitterness was the last thing that people would even have imagined when the courage to rise above such petty matters was on full display.
Can you imagine such scenarios in other sectors? The Airtel Best Wifi-Technology Award goes to Vodafone? Or the Taj Hotels Award for the Best Housekeeping Innovation goes to the Trident? Or the BMW Auto Awards for Social Change in the Auto sector goes to Mercedes? If that happens, I will be pleased as punch. If it doesn’t, I will believe it takes a lot more than just owning a channel to be able to acknowledge the role of peers and competitors.
Rajdeep Sardesai and his team have done this twice. When I asked him why, he clearly said, “Star and Satyamev Jayate showed that entertainment can be done with a social conscience and wider public interest and for KBC, the rationale was very simple - its ability to use an entertainment programme to connect with small and mofussil towns outside the big cities and give the common people a real chance to impact and change their lives.”
It is indeed a tough call - to step out of one’s comfort zone, remain unblinkered and focused on a path that one has set, as along the way come taunts, jibes and questions. To keep one’s head above water and sanity until the end would be deserving of an award itself… It’s a nice feeling that while you are patting someone’s back for a job well done, someone else comes along and pats yours.
Feedback: navroze@creatigies.com
