Future videos

Immediately after a marriage which you have skipped, intentionally or otherwise, if you happen to visit the bride or bridegroom’s house a video or the CD of the wedding will be thrust upon you to watch.

It’s a sort of a punishment for having played truant. You now have to pretend that you are interested in what is being shown on the small screen, rightly called idiot box now, and etiquette demands that you make appropriate comments like Oh! Ah! Wow! How nice? etc.

When the camera captures the dining hall visuals at close quarters you will know the menu that you missed by being not there and perhaps now regret missing it. When the
show ends it’s a big relief but you have to make appropriate noises, polite of course.

If there is no visual show, may be because of power cut, you may thank Bescom but you will be now thrust upon albums where the handiwork of the lensman will be there recreating the occasion for you. As you balance the bulky volume on your lap and reluctantly leaf through the thick pages, someone will be giving you a running commentary for each frame. No no, you cannot show your displeasure but instead pretend to show an immense interest in the proceedings that have been frozen in the albums for eternity. Marriages may be made in heaven but are captured by video or camera on earth.

Be that as may be, in these days of judicial activism, our politicians can have a different set of frames which they can show to their progeny all set to inherit their mantle. The scenes at the court, the milling crowds shepherded to indicate their popularity, the press conferences where they announce that they are 100 per cent innocent but have full faith in judiciary and that they would bow to the court verdict, (as if it is a favour they are doing), their struggle to get anticipatory bail, the march to the jail after losing the plea for bail, and later jubilant scenes when released either on bail or parole etc can be videographed. Courts won’t allow cameras inside the jail. If not the prison life could also be shot.

What for, you might wonder.

The scenes could help pitasris to warn their chiranjeevi wards to be careful when their netagiri begins because a wrong move would land them in trouble. The videos do not lie. The inimitable Kailasam once compared himself to Gandhi, the Mahatma of course, and said: He is a message and I am a warning. The videos here can play such a dual role.