Vinta Nanda
Managing Director
Asian Center for Entertainment & Education

”People call me a transgress-ive writer, but my transgress-ive comrades like William S. Burroughs, Kathy Acker and Georges Bataille too have never influenced me because they are boring. But for the first time ever a book influenced me a great deal and it was Tejpal’s Alchemy. It changed my outlook. Then I read his other two novels. When I finished reading, I thought Tejpal should be placed among masters like Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Nikos Kazantzakis. But still I don’t understand why Tarun — who has written such extraordinary novels — is just known as a journalist in India. Now, unfortunately, Tejpal has been given the “rapist” title even before his literary contributions are realised. He is still just an “accused”, but the media seems to have forgotten that the accusations are yet to be proved in the court. If proved, he will be punished. If not, can the media take back the colossal damage that has been done to him? I keep wondering if this is how Indian society wants to identify a literary genius. The television coverage of this case reminded me of a colony of vultures hovering for a carcass” – Charu Nivedita, Tamil Writer

I have been reading the preceding paragraph over and over again, since yesterday.

It tells me of the present state of affairs of television and its audiences, of new and social media as well. It is telling of the fact that a blood thirsty lynch mob provoked by ruthless anchors on television news channels, are now shaping the collective and diverse responses of masses, and creating a collage which is imaging the conscience of the people of India in present times; whether in context to a charge made by a young girl of being sexually assaulted by her senior who was a mentor, a father figure to her, in an elevator in Goa in early November, 2013, or in context to a sting operation revealing that the Chief Minister of one of the states of India put in action his state anti terrorism machinery to stalk another young girl that he has allegedly had an interest in.

“That the media shouldn’t be seen to be shielding one of their fraternity from charges of sexual assault, when it has hounded other wrong doers and compelled the government recently to amend a law that now states that advances made to women by men in position of authority be termed as rape as well”, does not also mean that the fierce competition between big media houses mostly funded and supported by corporations aligned to one political ideology or another, or as a matter of fact, both, should reveal themselves to this audacious extent either.

But they do!

Tehelka’s and Tarun Tejpals competitors and detractors are carrying out as uncompromising and as ferocious an attack at the downfall of one of its own members, conveniently obscuring their own actions by wearing glorified coronas of self righteousness that falsely project an unbiased reportage of events; as much as one political party takes on another, when a leader revealed is in the dock.

The most bourgeois’ exhibit among the guys grinning wickedly in the background will always be the words, ‘what an idiot, a fool to have got himself caught in a trap’; and that to our misfortune is the present culture uniting the powerful of the media, and welding the powerful in politics, together.

The complicit silence of the actors of this contemporary theatre, in general otherwise, remains impenetrable until one of their truths is exhumed and one of the offenders among them is alleged by them to be in flagrante delicto.

“Look, it’s all the more reason that we should not be shielding one of our own, if he is wrong”, roared every headline: electronic, digital or print.

Yes, this is election time, and we all know what the motives behind the blaring are; of all those in the battle field, fighting for a piece of power from a pie which reduces every five years as slices get conveniently stolen from under the nose of the most powerful vendors of vote bank politics.

A Tehelka dies, a Cobra Post emerges, and a First Post and News Laundry is seeking blood to find their freaked out territories in a frenzy of opinion about politics – state and sexual; at the same time when other powerful media/s occupy the social amplitude to find favour over the flood of individuals opining about issues just as audibly as the seasoned journalist.

Finally all Indian media conglomerates can be deconstructed and it can be established that they are allied to the same funds for their survival, and that they are committed to dance to the tune of a common deck of puppeteers; whereas angry ordinary people howling on social media have nothing to win or lose either, because gratification comes to them in the form of a false sense of empowerment that an illusion gives, of inclusion in a process they always feel cheated by for alienating them.

They still remain only numbers, but they don’t know it because it seems otherwise.

Let us get one thing straight, and that is that we are living in times when technology has unleashed an invasion of the democracy of voice, much before a state could have inculcated a tolerance for diversity; a patience for multiplicity of languages; a resilience for a medley of cultures; an endurance for contradictions in the politics of truth and lies; and a stamina among its people for the variance in the comprehension of morality.

Let’s face it. We’re living in times when we want to celebrate good times in groups of ‘our types’, fearing the misconstruction of our acts by spectators who may perceive our carousing as nefarious or unscrupulous.

Every PR event separates the VVIP room from the party. The VVIP room is where the celebrity drinks privileged liquor and is served chic cuisine, after making customary appearances at the adjoining party where a cheaper alcohol, mostly sponsored, flows. Aspiring commoners begin to believe that they are part of the swank club from that moment when they receive invitations to the dos.

Similarly, a tweet sent out by a so called ordinary man, when tagged to a discussion on television gives him the illusion of his participation in the discourse.

While we may believe that technology has democratized voice, let us be assured that a man’s mind is still smarter than the computer, and a politicians and a media’s mind is more manipulative and conniving than we can think. The plan is always in place before democracy overrides politics anywhere in the world, and time and again, history has proven this fact that revolutions create way for the same wine repackaged in a new bottle; political existence is completely dependent on a calculation, never based on the ideology floated by the hungry for power, because ideologies only impress themselves upon those starving and pleading for food, shelter and clothing, now respect, education and health services as well.

Over the past few decades, morality has been conflicted in definition when applied to unequal classes, separated by an economics of affordability. A capitalist revolution that has led India for the last 20 years has forcibly merged villages with metropolises and thrown assorted cultures together without creating spaces in evolving systems for them to carefully synthesize with each other.

People from incommensurable classes share the same dining table but follow several indoctrinations to transact their behaviour. How do we explain that to a collective race so quick to fall prey to the need for immediate approximation and appraisal?

From the clothes they wear, to the food they eat, from the fashions they share to the cuisines they explore, all people in the world are in general expressing themselves through habit or else, adventure; and the cautious, and who are in the plenty, are watchful and therefore slow to adapt.

The same applies to sexual behaviours and best or worst practices when it comes to use of toilets, comprehending disciplines, understanding law, availing of public and health services and considering sensitivities towards the differently able.

Information has reached almost all, but acceptance and the processing of the same information available to everyone in general are aberrant.

At the Asian Centre for Entertainment Education, we try to hear all differing voices from across the world, and through our website, weekly newsletter and social media we make efforts to make varied voices be heard as well. We do that in recognition of the fact that each person is entitled to his or her opinion whether it is about the movies they see, television programs they endorse or the music they prefer to listen to. But when it comes to humanitarian causes, peoples’ rights and entitlements and when it comes to access to health services and justice, or for that matter when it comes to addressing gender politics and sensitivities to senior citizens and the differently able, there is one strict policy that we follow, and that is that there is only one law, and that each case in point must seek its end according to that alone.

Media, all of it across all languages and cultures, electronic, print and digital has to follow the same discipline, either by internal policy, or by enforcement of the law of the land, else we are headed for an anarchy that will leave us beaten and bruised in no time, fractured and broken forever with no faith left in ourselves or others.

THE EYE OF THE STORM

THE EYE OF THE STORM is a weekly newsletter and this is its first edition being released from THE
ASIAN CENTRE FOR ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION (ACEE) via its project THE THIRD EYE, a venture
in partnership with Hollywood Health and Society (HH&S) at the Norman Lear Centre, University of
Southern California (USC).

THE THIRD EYE is one of the Global Centres launched by HH&S to support two of the largest
Industries of Media and Entertainment in the world, Nigeria and India.

In India the Global Centre primarily addresses creative communities across all performing and non
performing arts, with expert advice on key health, sustainable development and climate change
issues so that the portrayal of information about critical realities carried across to the massive
numbers of viewers and readers, is accurate and factual and so that the entertainment as well
as media consumed by millions of devoted followers translates to best practices across all social,
economic and policy parameters which then, eventually must reflect across all indicators.

The program is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

THE THIRD EYE builds bridges between the creative communities at large and industries of media
and entertainment in India, in general, and the PRIORITIES OF OUR TIMES.

India is a complex geography, and the viewership across all media and entertainment platforms is a
complicated demographic because of the myriad of languages and cultures that cohabit the space.

Realizing the common thread to be the universality of issues of development to be addressed, our
approach became simpler, therefore the roadmap could be comprehensively defined.

When counting numbers and outreach, there is no parallel to India in the rest of the world and the
consumption of its entertainment is far beyond the comparable.

We, ACEE and HH&S through THE THIRD EYE ventured out earlier this year to set up systems to
engage with the spectrum through traditional as well as direct methods of communication, with
practitioners of public health, unrelenting frontline workers of the development sectors, social
activists, the Government of India and film studios, television networks, associations that govern
the film and television industries of India, print and new media, to make them aware of the FREE-
ON-DEMAND service and resource we offer to creative communities, for them to have access to
important information they require from time to time. As we surged forward with the intention,
what fuelled the process was the absolute support of filmmaker and activist Mahesh Bhatt, who has
pledged his leadership to the process and who aptly puts it as this, “At ACEE, we believe that stories
backed with solid research can create content which will enter popular culture and have a profound social
impact.”

March 2013 was the launch of THE THIRD EYE at FICCI Frames, the annual three day conference
for the business of media and entertainment, organized by the Federation if Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industries where a panel discussion on socially provocative media and entertainment
led the project to its next stage. The panel comprised of filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Gautam
Ghosh, Producer Actor Kiran Juneja, Sandra de Castro Buffington, then the Director, HH&S, Jonathan
Taplin, Director, Annenberg Centre for Innovation and University of South California, School of
Communication & Journalism and Colin Macay, MD, Berkman Centre for Internet and Society,
Harvard University. We have Leena Jaisani, Director, Media & Entertainment, FICCI, Kulmeet Makker,
CEO, Producers Guild of India and Mukesh Bhatt, President, Producers Guild of India to thank.
Without their support, it would not have been possible.

In July 2013 was launched the annual conclave ELEVATE, which was attended by over 200 writers
and journalists from the media and the entertainment industries of India, who participated in
various panels comprising of thought leaders, public health practitioners, social activists and
frontline workers. This was followed by a workshop that showcased methods of integrating key
health, sustainable development and climate change issues with entertainment, which was led
by writers and producers from both Hollywood and the Indian Film & Television Industries. The
participants at the conclave were stalwarts like Mahesh Bhatt, Kamlesh Pandey, Anjum Rajabali,
Karen Tenkhoff, Carol Barbee, Sandra de Castro Buffington, Chris Dzialo, Augustine Veliath, Kalpana
Lajmi, Soni Razdan, writers Rohan Joshi, Pubali Chakroborti, Shagufta Rafique, television industry
leaders Shashi Ranjan, Anu Ranjan and Mukesh Bhatt, Producer and President of Producers Guild
of India. Gratitude is due from THE THIRD EYE to Mukesh Bhatt, Kulmeet Makker, Leena Jaisani,
Kamlesh Pandey (Film Writers Association) who made it a success.

THE STORY BUS TOUR, launched by THE THIRD EYE is a retreat for writers and in 2013 it took
creators from Hollywood Karen Tenkhoff (Co-producer Motorcycle Diaries) and Carol Barbee
(Touch) and creators from The Indian Film & Television Industries, Kalpana Lajmi, Soni Razdan,
Nirav Vaidya (commissioning editor Star Network), Murzban Shroff (Author: Breathless in Bombay),
writers Shiv Bhalla and Pratik Panjabi to Bodhgaya, Bihar, where they interacted with frontline
workers of Mahila Samakhya (a program that was launched in 1988 in pursuance of the goals of the
New Education Policy, 1986, and the Program of Action for the education and empowerment of
women in rural areas, particularly of women from socially and economically marginalised groups),
its founder Sister Sujitha and extraordinary women who had faced challenges and brought reform in
their societies over the last 25 years.

With the screening of MANGO GIRLS (Produced by Robert Carr and Directed by Kunal Sharma) in
September, 2013, THE THIRD EYE started to engage with creative communities and media through
discussions post screening of compelling media and films. Filmmaker and Activist Mahesh Bhatt
spoke to a mix of filmmakers, writers and media about the need for films to explore solutions to
the various problems that Indian Societies face, like the film Mango Girls does. The film is about an
obscure village near Bhagalpur, Bihar where for over 200 years, villagers have followed the tradition
of planting 10 mango trees at the birth of every girl child. This practice enables the families of the
village not to find girls to be a burden, on the contrary to educate and empower them.
Simultaneously, the creative team at THE THIRD EYE is developing Safed Doli, a full length feature to
be directed by Kalpana Lajmi, Sapna, a daily soap opera, and MADAT, a talk show to be co-produced
with Soni Razdan, all three that will be produced, released/broadcast in 2014.

The website acee-thethirdeye.org engages with creative communities across the board through
regular features like THOUGHT FACTORY, TRUE REVIEW, IN THE NEWS and PRIORITIES OF OUR
TIMES. The resources enable writers to tap information on priority issues from tip sheets, videos,
films and write ups. THE THIRD EYE radio inspires creative communities and encourages musicians
and composers to create content that motivates and moves the creative leaderships of the film,
television and media industries to address concerns. THE THIRD EYE also engages with creative
communities through social media via its pages facebook.com/thethirdeyeacee and twitter.com/thethirdeyeacee.

As we get closer to publishing the first issue of THE EYE OF THE STORM our focus remains on the
various levels of engagement with the world of media and entertainment which are being planned
and/or executed in the near future and for long term.

Our team Deepa Bhalerao, Program Outreach Manager, Hans Kapadia, Business Strategy &
Development, Shiv Bhalla, Creative Director, Pratik Panjabi, Content Strategy & Design, Neil Batavia,
Head Digital, Bhisham Makhija, Manager Operations and others, continue to come together
every day to discuss possibilities and find innovative solutions for reaching out to the industries of
entertainment and media which can become that storm when aligned together in motivation and
intent and which has the collective force that has the power to wipe out the various issues that
plague our country, and ring in a new India that is aware and informed.

As we go to print the first edition of THE EYE OF THE STORM, we understand that despite the
revolution of technology, entertainment and media today, 63% of India lives in the dark and a
gigantic number of villages, about 85000 today, live without electricity. THE THIRD EYE is finding
ways and developing innovative audience engagement strategies to reach media and entertainment
to those beyond the horizon of the present media and entertainment landscape and you will see
them unfold in the next few issues of THE EYE OF THE STORM.

THE EYE OF THE STORM

THE EYE OF THE STORM is a weekly newsletter and this is its first edition being released from THE
ASIAN CENTRE FOR ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION (ACEE) via its project THE THIRD EYE, a venture
in partnership with Hollywood Health and Society (HH&S) at the Norman Lear Centre, University of
Southern California (USC).

THE THIRD EYE is one of the Global Centres launched by HH&S to support two of the largest
Industries of Media and Entertainment in the world, Nigeria and India.

In India the Global Centre primarily addresses creative communities across all performing and non
performing arts, with expert advice on key health, sustainable development and climate change
issues so that the portrayal of information about critical realities carried across to the massive
numbers of viewers and readers, is accurate and factual and so that the entertainment as well
as media consumed by millions of devoted followers translates to best practices across all social,
economic and policy parameters which then, eventually must reflect across all indicators.

The program is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

THE THIRD EYE builds bridges between the creative communities at large and industries of media
and entertainment in India, in general, and the PRIORITIES OF OUR TIMES.

India is a complex geography, and the viewership across all media and entertainment platforms is a
complicated demographic because of the myriad of languages and cultures that cohabit the space.

Realizing the common thread to be the universality of issues of development to be addressed, our
approach became simpler, therefore the roadmap could be comprehensively defined.

When counting numbers and outreach, there is no parallel to India in the rest of the world and the
consumption of its entertainment is far beyond the comparable.

We, ACEE and HH&S through THE THIRD EYE ventured out earlier this year to set up systems to
engage with the spectrum through traditional as well as direct methods of communication, with
practitioners of public health, unrelenting frontline workers of the development sectors, social
activists, the Government of India and film studios, television networks, associations that govern
the film and television industries of India, print and new media, to make them aware of the FREE-
ON-DEMAND service and resource we offer to creative communities, for them to have access to
important information they require from time to time. As we surged forward with the intention,
what fuelled the process was the absolute support of filmmaker and activist Mahesh Bhatt, who has
pledged his leadership to the process and who aptly puts it as this, “At ACEE, we believe that stories
backed with solid research can create content which will enter popular culture and have a profound social
impact.”

March 2013 was the launch of THE THIRD EYE at FICCI Frames, the annual three day conference
for the business of media and entertainment, organized by the Federation if Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industries where a panel discussion on socially provocative media and entertainment
led the project to its next stage. The panel comprised of filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Gautam
Ghosh, Producer Actor Kiran Juneja, Sandra de Castro Buffington, then the Director, HH&S, Jonathan
Taplin, Director, Annenberg Centre for Innovation and University of South California, School of
Communication & Journalism and Colin Macay, MD, Berkman Centre for Internet and Society,
Harvard University. We have Leena Jaisani, Director, Media & Entertainment, FICCI, Kulmeet Makker,
CEO, Producers Guild of India and Mukesh Bhatt, President, Producers Guild of India to thank.
Without their support, it would not have been possible.

In July 2013 was launched the annual conclave ELEVATE, which was attended by over 200 writers
and journalists from the media and the entertainment industries of India, who participated in
various panels comprising of thought leaders, public health practitioners, social activists and
frontline workers. This was followed by a workshop that showcased methods of integrating key
health, sustainable development and climate change issues with entertainment, which was led
by writers and producers from both Hollywood and the Indian Film & Television Industries. The
participants at the conclave were stalwarts like Mahesh Bhatt, Kamlesh Pandey, Anjum Rajabali,
Karen Tenkhoff, Carol Barbee, Sandra de Castro Buffington, Chris Dzialo, Augustine Veliath, Kalpana
Lajmi, Soni Razdan, writers Rohan Joshi, Pubali Chakroborti, Shagufta Rafique, television industry
leaders Shashi Ranjan, Anu Ranjan and Mukesh Bhatt, Producer and President of Producers Guild
of India. Gratitude is due from THE THIRD EYE to Mukesh Bhatt, Kulmeet Makker, Leena Jaisani,
Kamlesh Pandey (Film Writers Association) who made it a success.

THE STORY BUS TOUR, launched by THE THIRD EYE is a retreat for writers and in 2013 it took
creators from Hollywood Karen Tenkhoff (Co-producer Motorcycle Diaries) and Carol Barbee
(Touch) and creators from The Indian Film & Television Industries, Kalpana Lajmi, Soni Razdan,
Nirav Vaidya (commissioning editor Star Network), Murzban Shroff (Author: Breathless in Bombay),
writers Shiv Bhalla and Pratik Panjabi to Bodhgaya, Bihar, where they interacted with frontline
workers of Mahila Samakhya (a program that was launched in 1988 in pursuance of the goals of the
New Education Policy, 1986, and the Program of Action for the education and empowerment of
women in rural areas, particularly of women from socially and economically marginalised groups),
its founder Sister Sujitha and extraordinary women who had faced challenges and brought reform in
their societies over the last 25 years.

With the screening of MANGO GIRLS (Produced by Robert Carr and Directed by Kunal Sharma) in
September, 2013, THE THIRD EYE started to engage with creative communities and media through
discussions post screening of compelling media and films. Filmmaker and Activist Mahesh Bhatt
spoke to a mix of filmmakers, writers and media about the need for films to explore solutions to
the various problems that Indian Societies face, like the film Mango Girls does. The film is about an
obscure village near Bhagalpur, Bihar where for over 200 years, villagers have followed the tradition
of planting 10 mango trees at the birth of every girl child. This practice enables the families of the
village not to find girls to be a burden, on the contrary to educate and empower them.
Simultaneously, the creative team at THE THIRD EYE is developing Safed Doli, a full length feature to
be directed by Kalpana Lajmi, Sapna, a daily soap opera, and MADAT, a talk show to be co-produced
with Soni Razdan, all three that will be produced, released/broadcast in 2014.

The website acee-thethirdeye.org engages with creative communities across the board through
regular features like THOUGHT FACTORY, TRUE REVIEW, IN THE NEWS and PRIORITIES OF OUR
TIMES. The resources enable writers to tap information on priority issues from tip sheets, videos,
films and write ups. THE THIRD EYE radio inspires creative communities and encourages musicians
and composers to create content that motivates and moves the creative leaderships of the film,
television and media industries to address concerns. THE THIRD EYE also engages with creative
communities through social media via its pages facebook.com/thethirdeyeacee and twitter.com/thethirdeyeacee.

As we get closer to publishing the first issue of THE EYE OF THE STORM our focus remains on the
various levels of engagement with the world of media and entertainment which are being planned
and/or executed in the near future and for long term.

Our team Deepa Bhalerao, Program Outreach Manager, Hans Kapadia, Business Strategy &
Development, Shiv Bhalla, Creative Director, Pratik Panjabi, Content Strategy & Design, Neil Batavia,
Head Digital, Bhisham Makhija, Manager Operations and others, continue to come together
every day to discuss possibilities and find innovative solutions for reaching out to the industries of
entertainment and media which can become that storm when aligned together in motivation and
intent and which has the collective force that has the power to wipe out the various issues that
plague our country, and ring in a new India that is aware and informed.

As we go to print the first edition of THE EYE OF THE STORM, we understand that despite the
revolution of technology, entertainment and media today, 63% of India lives in the dark and a
gigantic number of villages, about 85000 today, live without electricity. THE THIRD EYE is finding
ways and developing innovative audience engagement strategies to reach media and entertainment
to those beyond the horizon of the present media and entertainment landscape and you will see
them unfold in the next few issues of THE EYE OF THE STORM.