Rensil D'Silva: How to Make it in Bollywood Education in the Gulf ...

DIASPORA
Indians in UK are a common sight, many
retain their customs and habits just like
in India. Photo credit: Nishi Sharma,
Interserve & South Asian Concern.
would happily open their store and
serve them with a smile.
Indian-owned corner shops were
an institution as they were open all
hours and attracted mainly Indian
customers and also some English.
The major top name super-stores
were watching them in awe as
they attracted business. Even they
decided to join in the competition
by keeping theirs open all hours.
Prince Charles, the Prince of
Wales, paid a tribute to the Indianowned
corner shops by saying
they had revolutionised Britain’s
shopping system.
By using their clout for bulkbuying
and lower prices to
their customers the super stores
succeeded in routing the small
corner shops which have been
closing in the current economic downturn. But history is a
witness to how these small Indian shopkeepers taught the
giants that quality service attracts customers.
Today Indian shops stock virtually everything
produced in India complete with labels in Hindi, Urdu,
Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and other Indian languages.
While shopping in these stores sometimes one virtually
forgets that they are shopping in a store on British soil
and not in Mumbai. Every summer mangoes imported
from India and Pakistan are in popular demand as are
other fruits and vegetables flown from there.
As the community settled, their social needs also
grew. London lacked a radio station offering Indian
music.
It was a great day when London Broadcasting
Corporation (LBC) teamed up with Indian broadcasters
to launch Geetmala, a weekly entertainment
programme. It was presented by Chaman Lal Chaman,
a well known Indian broadcaster from Kenya and produced by Suresh
Joshi. LBC’s Keith Belcher was credited with allowing Geetmala to
come to fruition. That programme became a firm fixture with thousands
of Indian listeners.
Geetmala ended its run a few years later, but this proved there was
a need for radio stations offering Indian programmes. Other radio
stations followed.
There were several pirate radio stations run by various ethnic
communities, which were raided and closed down by the Home Office,
the Government authority. They rose again until the authorities realised
they had to cater for Britain’s
ethnic minority communities and
the best way to regulate them was
to licence them.
Sunrise Radio was born out of
such a creation. It has prospered
with the creation of several radio
stations and a small slice of
satellite broadcasting.
It is now very easy to set
up a commercial Asian radio
station. All you need is money
and a set of very sound reasons to
convince the Home office to grant
a broadcasting licence.
Meanwhile, BBC TV’s
erstwhile Nayi Zindagi Naya
Jeevan was also on its last legs.
It had served its purpose (and
bored its audiences thoroughly).
BBC TV in Birmingham started
Indian customers are often attracted to the paan shop
where they not only enjoy this favourite item but also
congegrate socially and exchange gossip.
revamping itself and its Asian
Unit looked at different ways
to develop programmes for the
growing Indian, Pakistani and
other Asian communities. ITV
also jumped on the bandwagon
with its own programmes for
Asian and Black viewers.
For Asian viewers, Eastern Eye
was broadcast under the watch of
Indian broadcaster Samir Shah
and a team that once included the
famous Karan Thapar, Narendra
Morar, Ziauddin Sardar, Shyama
Perera and Aziz Kurtha. I worked
for Samir Shah on a series of
programmes.
For Afro-Caribbean viewers,
there was Black on Black under
the watchful eye of the highly
respected broadcaster, Trevor
Philips, who is today the chairman
of Britain’s Commission for
Racial Equality.
These programmes ended
their run after a few years.
While BBC and ITV
controlled the terrestrial airwaves
for many years, there was ample
market for cable and satellite TV.
The arrival of Zee TV and
Sony TV revolutionised the
entire Indian media scene.
Now, viewers in the UK enjoy
whatever is being shown on these
channels in India. With a wide
array of programmes to choose
from, these TV networks have
actually brought India into the
living rooms of British Asians.
Apart from these two networks,
Star TV, Star Plus, BFU, Zee
Music and a wide array of other
channels such as Vectrone, Alpha
Punjabi, Zee Gujarati, have set
the media scene ablaze in Britain.
In many Asian households,
terrestrial TV channels such as
the BBC and ITV have long
been ignored as there is great
enthusiasm to watch Indian soaps
and films every day.
Added to this is the
plethora cinema houses such
as Cineworld, Himalaya and
various other theatres offering
latest Indian film releases.
So, far away from home,
people still feel at home in Britain
th
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ANNI V ERSARY
with a wide variety of choice.
Alas, the same cannot be said of newspapers for the Asian
community.
The print media, which first started revolutionising coverage of
Indian events has long been left behind.
There have been household names, as India Weekly (where I worked
as an assistant editor in the 1970s), Eastern Eye, Asian Voice, Garavi
Gujarat, Gujarat Samachar, Asian Trader, Des Pardes, Navin Weekly
and a variety of other language newspapers and magazines offering a
regular diet of news from back home.
The newspapers and magazines used to have a good readership
base at one time but nowadays, apart from first generation Indians who
enjoyed a good read, a lot of these have now crossed the floor to Indian
TV and radio channels.
The late Chottu Karadia, editor of the weekly current affairs
magazine, Asian Post, once said sardonically: “Asians simply do not
read! Why don’t our Asians read newspapers?”
The magazine was losing sales and consequently, advertising
revenue. Asian newspapers have depended very strongly on local
government advertising
and a band of loyal
readers. Both of these
have been dwindling
in recent years, making
enterprising Indian
publishers live on
precarious budgets.
The future for the
Indian owned print
media is not very strong.
Radio and TV have a
future here, though,
the Chief Executive
of Sunrise Radio once
lamented on air, that
while Indian traders stocked Coca Cola in their shops and stores, the
multinational did not see it fit to advertise its brands on his radio station.
Ugandan Asians heading into force exile by Idi Amin
That perhaps, says a lot about the business of publishing for the
Indian community in the United Kingdom.
Shamlal Puri is a veteran British journalist, broadcaster, author
and press photographer. He has worked with the media in Europe,
Africa, Asia and the Middle East. His latest novel ‘Salik or No
Salik? Welcome to Dubai! Tales of Taxi Drivers’ will be released
around the world, including Dubai, in 2010.
He has travelled to more than 100 countries in an illustrious
journalistic career spanning 30 years. His work has been published in
more than 250 magazines, newspapers and journals around the world.
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The International Indian
The International Indian 61