I sit in the fiction department of the production house I currently consult with. The fiction department isn’t a euphemism for the finance department - it means the department that works on conceptualizing and producing fiction shows for various entertainment channels.
I am not a part of this department – but it is a small office, so you pretty much squeeze yourself into whichever corner you can find. My corner happens to be bang in the middle of the noisy world of fiction. In my neighbouring corner is Nikhil, the creative producer on a long running soap. He is in crisis mode –the lead couple in his soap is now happily married after a stormy, intense and protracted love affair. That is bad news for the ratings – viewers don’t want to see a blissful domestic after life. (Though domesticity and bliss are perhaps contradictions in terms as the much married would testify but never mind that!)
Ideally the soap should have ended at the marriage – but no soap really ever ends – so now Nikhil has to stretch the happily ever after into infinitum. The channel and he go into a marathon con call and then there is a solution. The wedding is over, but there is still the small matter of consummation – the ‘suhaag raat’.
A snap decision is taken – the consummation will be delayed for as long as it is possible. The doctor will warn the hero about how the suhaag raat might worsen a gynecological disorder that his demure bride has suddenly been discovered with. He will now spurn her not so demure advances but not tell her why! The two of them will burn in the helpless longing of unconsummated desire, the channel will promote the hell out of the suhaag raat that may or may not happen and all will be well in the world of television.
I am often asked whether it was tough to write my first novel, The 6 PM Slot. (A satire on reality television and news television). The answer to that is I just described an hour in my average work day – what do you think?! The tough part was how many stories to keep out – and to give the structure of a plot to assorted vignettes. The even tougher part was to actually sit down and write the novel – my trigger was sudden unemployment. After a decade of working in television, I suddenly didn’t have a workplace to go and not much of a career left. There was disillusionment and hurt – and a definite sense of martyrdom! I felt the medium and my bosses at different points of my career had all let me down. I went into a massive sulk refusing to ever work in television again. I felt television owed me something for the years of thankless drudgery and had not delivered.
The sulk lasted all of two months and then one morning I began writing a short story based on an actual work experience. One of my last full time jobs was with a music channel – two weeks before the launch of a show, our hot new anchor contracted chicken pox. We convened an emergency meeting – and I had the pleasure of watching my highly paid bosses wrack their brains for an alternative to waxing. We had been told that even if the girl recovered in time, she would be in no position to wax. The situation was grave -imagine a potential sex symbol with hairy legs? I sat there bemused – I had quit my news channel job before that in an ideological huff and here I was debating the perils of waxing with fully grown men. Each time I recounted this story to any of my friends, it never failed to amuse them. That started me thinking that I could use the incident and spin a little story around it.
I then kept adding characters and situations and my short story became a novel. The 6 PM Slot is an irreverent look at how news and entertainment television works in India – plenty of readers especially from television have told me it is a scathing and sharp indictment. I didn’t mean it to be – I probably was a lot angrier than I thought I was. A former boss even told me that she was glad she wasn’t in the book – but the novel is not about individuals as much as it is about an industry. My colleagues in the media keep speculating on the real life inspirations for my characters. I admit I have picked up character traits from real life people that I have met – but by the time I was done with them, they were characters created by me and existing in my imagination. The aim was to create realistic prototypes and not caricature existing people. Just like Nikhil – the man who unfailingly shares his lunchtime chocolate with me. If he does read this, he would know this wasn’t about him –but about a lot of people like him who make up the delinquent world of television. Just like the ensemble cast of The 6PM Slot.
The novel has been out in the stores a little over a month now. So far, so good – it’s got some attention, some good reviews, some strictly ok. In spite of its packaging as commercial fiction and its rather provocative cover, it’s not been mistaken for chick lit. Writing it has cured my sulk –as I wrote, I stopped feeling betrayed and angry – I started enjoying the addictive absurdity of television all over again. By the time I was done writing, I was up to working in television again – this time with a healthy sense of detachment.
As I sign off, Nikhil is bellowing across to his second in command in notes of deep frustration, ‘This is now enough. One month now – let’s just f…ing consummate!’
Besides the second in command who looks equally harried, no one else in the small office blinks an eyelid.
Naomi Datta used to be a broadcast journalist and television presenter with TIMES NOW & CNBC TV18. Now she consults on television shows for entertainment channels. Her debut novel The 6 PM Slot published by Random House is a satirical take on the Indian television industry
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