How all the news channels, are making it their main business, after politics & sport, to pry into the private lives of people in the public eye. This is legitmate news when it concerns their careers. We in India, meaning the press & media, are extremely tolerant of the affairs of our top people. Everybody knows about the man-woman relationship of various presidents, prime ministers, state ministers, but they are seldom written about or discussed in the media. Let us call it the Indian way. What I am objecting to is the relentless pursuit of of young in various walks of public life, whom the media pursues in gleetful detail. At the moment it is the example of the relationship  of the Yuvraj Singh & Deepika Padukone. No one would mind if they were shown on TV & their relationship was discussed occasionally with factual details. But it is not done that way.  When Deepika goes to Sydney to shoot for a film, that fact is cleverly underplayed & the media mentions, instead, that Yuvraj Singh is paying for her passage & her stay. Well, that is his & their business & it seems mean to go into such sordid details. In fact, when they are dining quietly in a restaurant in Sydney, the spying cameras capture a shot of their eating food, & this sort of half shot is presented to viewers as a great piece of investigative journalism.

For that matter, at least three channels have devoted their entire programmes, one a full half hour & a full hour in bits & snatches to the two. It is not confined to their present relationship, including the earlier speculation about her being admired by dhoni & whether these two cricketers remain friends with the focus shifting to Yuvraj. No, it is much worse than that. The so-called investigative journalists have dug up who are the men who pursued Deepika  earlier. How & why Yuvraj’s  much-publicised relationship with Kim Sharma was called off. Even Yuvraj’s mother was dragged in. It is perfectly natural for young people to fall in love & out of it. After all, it is love which makes the world go round. But must the prying cameras get imperfect shots of a young couple dining in a restaurant? Do viewers really want it? For years the Bombay film industry fed the box office with tripe, saying that was what cinegoers wanted. Until they were found out. Not that some people donot relish the publicity.

I feel permission of people who donot want this kind of publicity for their private lives should be taken as also that of viewers.