Where have all the voices gone?
I grew up watching(but mostly just listening) Komal GB Singh read the 9 p.m. news on Doordarshan. There was this amazing dark-honey like quality of her voice, that made you forget whatever else was happening around you. I still remember when I once called her on the phone, many years after she had given up reading the news, I was so nervous, my hands were shaking.
Cut to today - pick any channel of your choice (do we have a real 'choice' in picking one? The only choice I really exercise is NOT tuning into any of them). But, for academic purpose, let's pick ANY. You can't tell from another, and for good reason I suppose, they are also relaying pretty much the same news, read by untrained, karkash voices who think it is quite ok to call Subzi - Subji or Bazaar - Bajaar. It's quite ok, perhaps, to speak like that on the street...but on a national telecast on a leading, HINDI news channel?
But hey, the worst culprits for me are the private FM stations - the combined cacophony of the music they play AND the voices. RJs are supposed to be like this? But hang on a sec. AIR FM - Rainbow?! Muaaah - Muaaah - Muaaah! Some of the voices there are a different story altogether...but why do they have to read from a script??- I recently listened to one of the regulars on 'Matchless Music Hour', Kiran, read out a list of concoctions, supposed to make you beautiful from the outside and inside, one after another -I promise you - for 5 non-stop minutes! Kiran, I wouldn't have heard or believed any of it, had it not been for the voice! Sigh!
