Amid War, Passion for TV Chefs, Soaps and Idols - New York Times
Today's NYT article on the popularity of television gives a fascinating perspective on the power and potential of television to influence populations. It looks at television in Afghanistan, a country where "according to the government’s latest surveys, only 43 percent of all households have nonleaking windows and roofs, 31 percent have safe drinking water and 7 percent have sanitary toilets."
Even though "a mere 14 percent of the population has access to public electricity," people find a way to electrify their lives. Nearly 1 in 5 Afghan households own a television which is all the more "remarkable" since "owning a TV was a crime under the Taliban." The times reports that city dwellers are even more addicted to the tube, citing "a study this year of Afghanistan’s five most urban provinces, two-thirds of all people said they watched TV every day or almost every day."
More interesting quotes....
“People watch television because there is nothing else to do.”Reading is certainly less an option; only 28 percent of the population is literate. “Where else can one find amusement?” Mr. Akhgar asked.
Each night, people in Kabul obey the beckoning of prime time much as they might otherwise answer the call to prayer. “As you can see, there is truth on the television, because all over the world the mother-in-law is always provoking a fight,” said Muhammad Farid, a man sitting in a run-down restaurant beside the Pul-i-Khishti Mosque, his attention fixed on an Indian soap opera that had been dubbed into Dari.Women, whose public outings are constrained by custom, most often watch their favorite shows at home. Men, on the other hand, are free to make TV a communal ritual. In one restaurant after another, with deft fingers dipping into mounds of steaming rice, patrons sit cross-legged on carpeted platforms, their eyes fixed on a television set perched near the ceiling. Profound metaphysical questions hover in the dim light: Will Prerna find happiness with Mr. Bajaj, who is after all not the father of her child?
“These are problems that teach you about life,” said Sayed Agha, who sells fresh vegetables from a pushcart by day and views warmed-over melodramas by night.
What to watch is rarely contested. At 7:30, the dial is turned to Tolo TV for “Prerna,” a soap opera colloquially known by the name of its female protagonist. At 8, the channel is switched for “The Thief of Baghdad.” At 8:30, it is back to Tolo for the intrafamily and extramarital warfare waged on “Tulsi,” the nickname for a show whose title literally means “Because the Mother-in-Law Was Once the Daughter-in-Law.”
What will the Afghanis see of American TV....
“We’ve just bought the rights to ‘24,’ the American show,” he said. “We had some concerns. Most of the bad guys are Muslims, but we did focus groups and it turns out most people didn’t care about that so long as the villains weren’t Afghans.”
