Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Poor Barkha

After the Radia Niira tapes expose there has been a sea change in the firebrand tv journaist and anchor Barkha Dutt. The former eloquent, ebullient, cocksure, brilliant selfconfident Barkha has turned into a gloomy and crestfallen Barkha who has lost her halo as she continues bravely with her interviews. Yesterday I saw her on NDTV interviewing Kapil Sibal the Minister in charge of telecom. It was a totally different Barkha, meek, submissisve and lacking the fire and chutzpah in her cross examination. Kapil Sibal is a great lawyer besides being a politician. It was hard to pin him down or get anyting worthwhile about the 2G scam from his mouth and for once he was the one who was grilling Barkha at several points during the interview. What a fall was there, my countrymen ! It takes years to build up a re putation and all it takes is a small slip and hobnobbing with lobbyists and being unfortunate enough to be caught in the act by the phone tappers from Enforcement Directorate to bite the dust. Gone in a minute ! Will she ever regain her pre-eminence in tv journalism? Dumb question !