Afghans, like Indians, love a good cry

Taran N Khan

KABUL: When Sonu Nigam came to Kabul earlier this year, the earth shook under his feet, literally.

The stage for his performance collapsed, cracking neatly into two under the weight of 350 security personnel, spectators perched atop speakers and the twenty-eight other stars from Bombay.

“Luckily no one was hurt”, recalls Brajesh Verma, media manager and entrepreneur who co-organised the event.

Brajesh had defied security threats, debts and a flourishing black market in tickets to ensure that the show went on. “It was a question of Indian pride, we couldn’t back out.”  Brajesh first came to Kabul thirteen weeks after the Taliban left. “There wasn’t a single intact structure, and no building over one storey high in the city.”

He returned in 2004 as part of the Aina Media Centre. Established with French assistance, Aina saw the first tentative steps towards video production in post-conflict Afghanistan.

“For one of our earliest shoots, we had hired a taangewala who was initially very happy with the money we offered. After a few retakes he suspected we were crazy because we kept making him repeat his actions.  He got so nervous he offered to return our cash if we let him leave,” laughs Prashant Satpathy, head of video production at Aina.

This unfamiliarity with cameras has led to some problems, especially when shooting with women camerapersons.

“At one location the local boys refused to allow us shoot in front of a mosque.” When the police tried to intervene, they got beaten up. “ All hell broke loose, with us trying to save the police as well as control our camerawomen, who were insisting on shooting. 

“The oldest Afghan journalist I know is only thirty five years old,” says Ravi Ramkrishna, Doordarshan correspondent in Kabul.

“There is a serious vacuum of experienced media persons in the country.” For Ravi, reporting out of a conflict zone means frequently having to trace rocket attacks in the middle of the night. But there are stories of hope also, which he has to struggle to get on air. “It is difficult to get people at home to take Afghanistan seriously,” he says wryly. That could be a mistake.

With four new private channels broadcasting daily in addition to the state run station, new horizons are appearing for the Afghan media industry.

Such is the demand for entertainment that Tolo TV sends DVDs of its programmes to remote provinces where it cannot broadcast directly. Cable operators then screen the shows on their networks.

However, the content of most television shows is restricted by traditional boundaries as well as government controls. As a result, some channels depend heavily on ever-popular Bollywood for content. 

For production houses like Aina, the business comes from international NGO’s, which are a huge presence in Afghanistan.

“Business is good, despite the increased competition we make at least $60,000 a month,” says Prashant. 

The costs for this success include persuading reluctant female characters to appear on camera and dealing with parents demanding higher pay for their daughters.

“Europeans are very mechanical, they do exactly what is required and stop. But seeing our Indian system of working anytime, getting our hands dirty with every aspect of production work, even our Afghan colleagues get inspired to join in.”  

The biggest advantage for Indians working in the media has been an intuitive understanding of what touches Afghan audiences.

“Indian ideas work here, they are high on emotions and music,” says Ravi. For his first documentary on reconstruction, Prashant used the most patriotic song he could find to open the film. “Europeans don’t like it if you touch their emotions, but Afghans, like Indians, love a good cry.”