The tube of Babel

Thanks to television, we can see where the sight doesn't reach. We can see people and places, and then, of course, put faces to names while listening to what they say. And this is how it works. The transmitter broadcasts signals over airwaves. These signals are electrical in nature and are transformed into radio waves, which are then picked up by receivers and processed back to audio and video electric signals that are played on the television set. But somewhere there is a loss of quality in this transformation, because what is released on the screen may not accurately reflect what is captured at the scene.
Yes, television can play tricks on the eyes. It can sit like a wedge of illusion between ideal and real in our minds. And that illusion can be created through make-up and costume. Then, sets and cameras play their roles. But, believe me, nothing does it like word of mouth. People say a lot of things on television, but they don't always practice what they preach.
So it happens as it does. Television is mischievous when it creates the gap between actual and apparent. If you listen to people on television, mostly those who appear on talk shows, they say what others want to hear. They say all the right things and demonstrate high moral standards.
If we remember, a legal-eagle couple once spoke and sang on a television show and then ended up in jail for corruption. And then there was that series where powerful men and their children appeared in pairs. We listened to the spellbinding stories of how they had the enviable capacity to hold both public and private lives in an astounding balance!
Since then the reality has proved otherwise. Many of the fathers and some of their children are either in jail or on the lam. It is now obvious that they had either lied to each other, or acted in cahoots to lie to rest of us. I have already said it! Television can make it happen. It can fade out the ugly and focus on the pretty spot!
Lest we forget, television is a derivative of science, which is in the business of distributing art. It must entertain, and entertainment is about packaging like cooking is about seasoning. What matters is not nutrition, or the ingredients. The recipe doesn't work unless it makes an appeal to the taste buds.
This is where television does it well. It presents those who can speak with a straight face. If you listen to them, it leaves you amazed that if so many people know what is right, then why should anything go wrong? And I plead with you. Pay attention when they speak next time. They know the questions, and they know the answers. They know the problems, and they even know the solutions.
Of course, this applies mostly to the talk shows. I mean songs are songs and dances are dances, and then television dramas also follow their scripts. But talk shows are scripted twice, once in the minds of directors and again in the minds of those who are directed, the speakers who say what they say, not because they mean it but because it makes sense.
Television is distant viewing of what is close to heart. There are differences of time and space between views and viewers, and while the video signals create glamour, the audio signals create geniality to convince our minds. One is meant to transmit beautiful faces, and another is meant to transmit beautiful minds.
In so much as these beautiful things come to our homes, the time has come to be cautious. Time has come to assure quality before those faces and minds are loaded on the screen, because in their power to leaven us, they can lift us as well as put us down.
In the past months, some of the talk shows have been like late night parties at Stalin's home. Friends and admirers who sang and danced through the night were whisked off to jail by secret police at the strike of dawn. We have seen powerful people who landed in jail right after they had spoken to us on television about right and wrong.
And it happened because many of them, who said the right things in front of the camera, had done grievous wrongs behind it. That is why, I say, we must exercise caution. For example, we aren't going to like it if we have to take our families to those places where strangers speak foul language. Would we like to bring these places to our living rooms?
For all practical reasons, television is a device of double standard. It gives chance to those who speak to us to turn their two faces, one to the television screen and another to the real world.
There is this story of the Tower of Babel, which is mentioned in the Old Testament. The people of the city of Babel, the Hebrew name for Babylon, decided to have a tower so immense that it would have its top in the heavens. The builders intended the tower to reach to heaven; their presumption, however, angered Jehovah, who interrupted construction by causing among them a previously unknown confusion of languages. Everybody spoke in the same language, but nobody could understand each other.
The moral of the story is loud and clear. People who talk to us on television create a clamor where thoughts clash and ideas collide, but most of all their intentions slide. Everybody says something, but what is said is often misleading. We may not always read their minds, but we must keep away those who are known for their past.
Thanks again to television because it has the power to take us beyond the horizon. But it also has its hazards. If we don't choose the right people, they can shrink, not expand, that horizon for us. At last, television could become the tube of Babel, which would confuse everyone!
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.