Strange are the workings of the human mind. Just a few weeks back Rajesh Khanna was trending on twitter, massacred for his advertisement for Havells. There’s no question the ad had no business to be made. But the viciousness of its critics left your columnist trying to defend: 'Don’t deny a man his right to a living; don’t just show case him in a time warp!’

Not surprisingly, the berating continued.

Last night, watching the entire News Hour with Arnab Goswami, the contrast hit me more. In his amusing pausing-choking-excitable sort of way, Goswami (or 'Ornob’ as his regulars refer to him) felt the matter of death was important enough to discuss nothing else. Lyricist Javed Akhtar’s recount of women smearing the parting of their forehead with mud from the tyres excited our anchorman no end…he mentioned this several times, with a stated duty towards youthful demographics between 25-35. There was even a singer called Babul Supriyo whose admitted association with Rajesh Khanna were trips to the hairdresser, where Supriyo prefered the ‘Kaka cut’ not Uttam Kumar’s!

I wonder why those on this rediscovery trip didn’t interview the man over the last 10-15 years. Is it because he had curious mehndi dyes in his hair? Or that he looked fat and, err…how should I put it, distinctly unpretty? Is it because not one of his films made money any more? Or the fact that his purported drinking and depression (about Amitabh Bachchan?) left him with very little time for renewal and going beyond glories of the past?

This illiteracy of history explains why almost every news channel is beating to death two-and-a-half clips of lifetime achievement awards IIFA gave him, way back in 2009 via Amitabh Bachchan. Tribute for us is a mele of songs, typically “Mere sapnon ki Raani,” and the death scene of Anand, with co-actor Bachchan imploding in grief, and the spool of tape whirring two hundred times and 'Ornob’ pontificating on vicissitudes of life!

Related to TV’s demand for the pretty picture is the uncomfortable fact that as a people we have little sense of history. This is a country where the national flag unfurled on Red Fort on August 15, 1947 isn’t to be found, but hardly anyone demands an answer. Tiny Singapore, in contrast, holds on to every single scrap of paper, every little stone or paer weight that it can use to remind its people of Lee Kuan Yew’s struggle against the Malays. They learnt it from our former rulers, who make an art form out of every street in London that the Beatles lived in, or George Bernard Shaw walked on, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and William Shakespeare paused to buy a bagle.

In contrast, ask for the slightest trace of our poet laureates. But for his books in a cheaply produced CBSE text book, there’s precious nothing in our hands to relive the magic of Premchand. Or Maithili Sharan Gupt. Or even the great Tulsidas and Ghalib. Yet, when six marketing yuppies feel “The Greatest Indian,” is a telegenic idea, a leading news channel launches into the insane comparison of the greatness of Ambedkar and MS Subbalaxmi; JRD Tata and Bismillah Khan! (Rajesh Khanna does not make it to the list, by the way.) No prizes for guessing that Tendulkar, presumably to his embarassment, will win.

The desi idea is a complete copy of the BBC’s sublimely classy show, Great Britons. I happened to live in that country for a few months while the show was on peaking. The night that Churchill won only a climax. It leveraged a thousand hours of prime time tv, events created on the ground, in museums, schools and community centers, exposing young Britons to the contributions a 100 of their “greats,” each one espoused by an on-screen champion. This, at the risk of being clubbed as a Raj apologist, was class apart from desperate calling-attention tweets by CNN-IBN anchormen. (For ready recall, the top ten Britons and their champs were: Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Jeremy Clarkson??Winston Churchill - Mo Mowlam??Oliver Cromwell - Richard Holmes ??Charles Darwin - Andrew Marr??Diana, Princess of Wales - Rosie Boycott??Queen Elizabeth I - Michael Portillo??John Lennon - Alan Davies??Horatio Nelson -Lucy Moore??Isaac Newton - Tristram Hunt??William Shakespeare - Fiona Shaw).

Perhaps the BBC could have afforded to invest so much in the rediscovery of British self confidence. But it sure hurts to see that the focus of our desi photocopy is merely some voting (I didn’t say sms bucks, did I!)

For the record, I brought back the Great Britons idea in its purity to a channel I worked a few months after my return. No one wanted to invest beyond sms and advertising. Also, no one thought Shivaji, Akbar or Tansen (I didn’t curtail the idea to more tele-friendly post-Independence candidates) would generate the right body of ratings.

I remain hopeful that a true Greatest Indian poll, prefaced with large doses of nostalgia and information on our greats, is picked up by some channel. I won’t say “Doordarshan,” as their’s isn’t the only responsibility for heritage programming. Those cornering public airwaves (and PSU advertising) have a social contract too!

A quick after word on Kaka. A go-between once sent feelers to my channel asking if we wanted him to re-appear in our court room show. There was a drought of available guests. Kaka could well have been fitted in. But guess what happened! Comedian Raju Shrivastava and Ramdev were repeated for weeks on end. The overture on Kaka was politely declined.

Not merely for its archival value, if it had been recorded, that show would have been worth a lot more than unauthorised replays of IIFA footage.

Irony of ironies, Kaka’s cremation is on LIVE tv, but the man while he was alive wasn’t interesting enough! Any anchormen needing phone numbers of Shashi Kapoor, Dilip saheb, or Dharmendra, and those with bigger contribution but not celluloide footage to back it (may the Lord give each one a hundred more years!) just has to ask the channel’s guest coordinator.