‘Anything could go wrong’: Anchors recall early days of TV in India
It’s no wonder Salma Sultan got the jitters at the start of every news bulletin. “Anything could go wrong, you know,” she says, laughing.
Scripts were typed, for instance, on rusted machines that displaced letters from time to time. And so a line that went something like “Purane zamane mein auraton ko parde mein bandh rakha jata tha” (In the olden days, women were kept behind curtains) became “Purane zamane mein aurato ko bandara kha jata tha” (In the olden days, women would be eaten up by monkeys).
“I was on air when that line came up on the teleprompter,” says Sultan, laughing. “I glanced at it, realised in a fraction of a second that it was wrong, and thankfully said the right line.”
Sultan, now 76, worked with Doordarshan (DD) for three decades, from 1967 to 1997, and was among the first news presenters on India’s TV screens, inviting viewers to listen to “aaj ka samachar” (the news of the day).
Her generation was trained to use a monotone, a blank expression and minimum cadence; very different from the laughing, familiar, leaned-in anchors of today (and the shouting, near-violent ones).
She was only 20 when she started; she would see DD, officially launched in 1965, expand to cities across the country, then hive off into its own corporation, separating from All India Radio (AIR) in 1976.
As it grew, it was always looking for fresh content. Among those who pitched shows to DD at this time was Rajiv Mehrotra, then a student at St Stephen’s College in Delhi. His show, Youth Forum, was picked up in 1971. It was aimed at the English-speaking youngster and explored a range of subjects, from theatre and literature to what it is like to be in love.
At the time, anchoring fetched him a princely sum of about ₹75 per broadcast, he says.
Rajiv Mehrotra on an episode of his popular talk show, Conversations.
He then moved into news presenting, reporting, filmmaking. “It was a time of great freedom, vitality and comradery,” says Mehrotra, now 71 and founder and managing trustee of The Public Service Broadcasting Trust, which supports young documentary filmmakers.
Among the most dramatic events that Mehrotra reported on was the astronaut Rakesh Sharma’s journey into space, in April 1984. Only two correspondents, one each from Doordarshan and AIR, were allowed into the USSR to report on the launch of the Soyuz T-11. “We were strapped into Mi-6 helicopters, broadcasting live while scanning the skies for the capsule. To be able to share in the unfolding history, the excitement and suspense, was a huge privilege,” he says.
Back at headquarters, six months later, all eyes would be on Sultan, as she made one of the most difficult broadcasts of her life. Clips that still circulate online show the dazed young presenter announcing that Indira Gandhi had been gunned down.
“We were taught to be objective, to never express our feelings. But when something as devastating as this happens… I think it reflected in my face,” she says.
Former Doordarshan news presenter Salma Sultan, with the trademark rose in her hair.
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From 1977 to 1983, as Doordarshan began to expand its educational and cultural programming, Siddhartha Basu started making documentary films for the broadcaster.
His first, Life Before Birth, was a science feature. “I was working with a small agency called Television News Features. I did my own research, worked on scripts and voiceovers, directed. We did our own animation too,” says Basu, 69.
He moved on to join the Taj Group as a cultural coordinator. At the time, former colleagues were creating a pilot for an independent programme, a quiz-based game show, and had seen him emceeing a hotel event. “One of them called one afternoon and asked if I was in a suit — and I was because that was the dress code at work — and asked if I would come over for 10 minutes and introduce the pilot.”
About a month later the ex-colleague called again, to say that Doordarshan had picked up the show and wanted Basu to host it. Quiz Time opened in the primetime Sunday 9 pm slot, in 1985.
For all its popularity, it was an ultra-shoe-string production, he says, laughing. It was shot in various auditoriums. “But Barry John designed the sets, Loy Mendonsa composed the music. It had higher production values, better content than was the norm, and national participation too.”
Basu would go on to host quiz show after quiz show, each defined by his warm, encouraging, energised demeanour. Over decades, there would be India Quiz, Mastermind, University Challenge, India’s Child Genius, and now, after a 20-year gap, Quizzer of the Year (on SonyLiv).
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The next generation of youth icons on TV would not come from DD.
Many of them came from two competing music channels: MTV and Channel [V]. These platforms aimed to be cool, colourful, informal. Their VJs or video jockeys wore ripped jeans and tees, or anything else they felt like; their hair might be unkempt chic or covered by a hat. Scarves floated about; wristbands abounded.
In an India where children still listened to their parents and assumed every hour after school was homework time, this breed of youngsters — Nonie and Trey, Luke Kenny, Nikhil Chinapa and Amrita Arora — were a riveting anomaly.
They introduced top-10 lists, discussed rock and metal — and there was that pose, hands clasped in front, shifting from leg to leg, head to one side. Then the internet stormed in, a new millennium dawned, screens shrunk and went personal, and it all changed again.
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As they look back, these presenters of yore, little confessions emerge.
When it came time to shoot, the lights were so hot, especially in summer, that it made a suit unbearable, Mehrotra says, laughing. “I was often wearing a pair of shorts below the formal shirt, jacket and tie.”
The teleprompter was operated manually in the early years, says Sultan, and the text always scrolled either too fast or too slowly. “I would often gesture desperately outside the frame for the operator to slow it down.”
It’s exciting to see how the medium has been democratised, Mehrotra adds. “But with that democratisation come risks and responsibility.” The camera used to be proof that something was true; today, it is so easy to make it lie.
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