A Deccani Channel out of a home in Bangalore (Shaina Anand)

A Deccani Channel out of a home in Bangalore

Director: Shaina Anand

Duration: 00:28:29; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 24.852; Saturation: 0.101; Lightness: 0.409; Volume: 0.224; Cuts per Minute: 119.011; Words per Minute: 117.572

A visit to the studio-home of Kashif Haq, a young entrepreneur who had tried to run an Urdu language channel out of his family house in Cox town. His younger sister Safina was chief editor and set designer for 'Suroor TV'. Suroor TV 's twists and trials in going on air, its popularity amongst the large Urdu and Deccani speaking population of Shivaji Nagar, and its ultimate removal from the air waves by MSO's (multi service operator) after about six months, formed the basis of an uncensored talk show on local media politics and monopolies.

Outside Divya Cable Vision, DH Lokesh's office in Shivajinagar, Bangalore.Lokesh and Kashif leave with Shaina.
Shivajinagar,Bangalore
cable operater

Idle chatter between Kashif and others in Lokesh's car, on the way to 'Suroor TV' studio, located in Kashif's home in Coxtown, Bangalore.
They've made it a oneway...
Sohail Bhai has gone to Hyderabad.
Take the next turn.
KS: Actually the helicopter was quite shaky. They were showering flowers from the helicopter, but since there was a lot of turbulence the camera was also unsteady.It was that far away. We could see it from that far away. And in a fraction of a second it can move from here to there.So it wasn't focussed right.
______________.
KS: They went there for their own work... Just to help them. They are interested in reporting, it's their business.
They made a serial?
KS: Yes we made a serial for Doordarshan but it didn't run for long.
It didn't work.
LK: The sponsors didn't back us so it didn't work.
Bangalore
Doordarshan
Hyderabad
cable operator
camera
conversation
helicopter
reporting
serial
sponsers

Idle chatter between Kashif and others in Lokesh's car, on the way to 'Suroor TV' studio, located in Kashif's home in Coxtown, Bangalore.
KS: Keep going straight till the 'dead end'. We'll go home from there.
KS: Because of the call centers you can see 'Sumos' and 'Qualis' on these streets even till 3 or 4 in the night.
SA: There are call centers here?
KS: No people from here work at call centers, so the cars come here to pick them up and drop them after work. So many people here going to Call centers and BPOs now.
LK: Work at call centers...
KS: If you take a left from here you'll reach _______ railway station.
SA: So what is your opinion on call centers.
LK: Oh!(smiling)
KS: Fantastic! They should happen.
SA: Yeah?
KS: Yeah. Why not?
LK: Because almost 20% of the...
KS: They introduce all these products to us, all these MNCs, all the FMCG's.
LK: And anyways people are unemployed.
KS: Exactly, people are earning, they are employed now.
LK: At least the unemployment is lesser now.
BPO
Call center
FMCG
MNC
conversation
employed
opinion
unemployment

Idle chatter between Kashif and others in Lokesh's car, on the way to 'Suroor TV' studio, located in Kashif's home in Coxtown, Bangalore. Lokesh's colleague cracks a joke about Call Centers. The car arrives at Kashif's house where two green hoardings of Suroor TV written in English and Urdu are placed on the balcony.
BPO
KS: Five years back a Bcom graduate would get a salary of three thousand rupees, in a marketing job.
LK: Now they're earning ten thousand...
KS: Yes now they're earning around ten-fifteen thousand. It's good.
If you work in a Call Center you don't get old.
KS: Park on the left.
If you work in a Call Center you don't get old.
SA: Why?
KS: There's nothing like that.
SA:Why?What?
Because you die before getting old.
Suroor TV
community media
conversation
death
graduate
joke
old
salary

Safina gives us a tour of the first floor of the house where one mid sized room functions as the studio.
Chroma
Suroor TV
blue screen
community media
content
cottage industry
effect
independent media
lightings
programming
studio
infrastructure

parasite

SF:The studio's upstairs. The editing room is also upstairs.
SA: In your home?
SF:Yes at home, upstairs. Because if we would have rented an office space,we might have faced problems with the landlord Sometimes they might have had issues with our work, usage of electricity, water etc. Because you need lightings and all those things.Here's the room.

SA: Wow it's right here.
SF:This is the studio. We use this blue background, and certain shades of blue background will help us do Chroma. There are certain colors,red,blue. But we've selected blue, it's easy for us.
SA: Blue is more neutral for Chroma. Because our clothes too they are less...
SF:Yeah.Sometimes it's quite fun, because we paint the face blue and then it disappears. We'd made a joke about a ghost using this. In it the person suddenly disappears, and people start laughing but they don't know what trick we've used to get that effect.So this has really helped a lot.

Bangalore
Cox town

SA: And then you can change the background of the set by using Jpegs on the comp.
SF:Yes , we use Jpegs. Sometimes we use the image of Taj Mahal, or whatever we want.
Sometimes we stage Qawwali's and usually we use a plain background for it.
SA: So you do full recording here.
SF:Yes we do full recording. And we capture it from here to there. Because we want to be a bit stronger to do a live show. There's a system for live chroma which is available but we haven't got it as yet,because we actually wanted to get specialised in this. When we have a larger reach then we might go in for it.
SF:Would you like to see the editing room?
SA: Yes, yes.
Safina gives us a tour of the first floor of the house where one mid sized room functions as the studio.
Chroma
Qawwali
Suroor TV
blue screen
community media
content
live
programming
recording
studio

SF:This was actually meant to be an office.
SA:It's very beautiful.
SF:Thank you.
SF: Because at present there is no one here, otherwise it's cluttered with chairs ,tables and all that stuff.
SA: Wow.
KS (talking on the phone): I'm at home...yes, yes. Remind me about it.
SF: We've actually maintained these CDs, we keep checking... of Suroor TV. Every is mixed up, we keep checking which one, where, how.
SF: This is the transformer through which we get our signals.
Safina gives a tour of the editing room which is, on the first floor of her home, near the studio.
Suroor TV
TV signal
editing
studio
transformer

pasarite
During this time (November 2005) we met Kashif and Safina, a brother and sister team that was running a TV station, Suroor TV, which means something between pleasure and intoxication, out of their home in Bangalore. They were part of a vital terrestrial cable TV ecosystem, that was under pressure by larger networks and satellite "direct to home" TV. Suroor TV generated content in Deccani.

SA: And how is the signal transmitted.
KS: See we have a cable transmitter here, so what we used to do. So all our programs were on the CDs, we would play the CD and would play the advertisements using this computer. And this is the audio-video mixer. We play the program through the CD player and the settings would change when we played the advertisements, using the computer.
SA: Switchover.
KS: This is a ___ Transmitter____ one wire used to go to Siti Cable. Every one kilometer they have an end.
SA: This thick cable.
KS: Yes the thick cable. So from here we used to transfer it to them, they used to collect it and distribute it all over Bangalore.
SA: What can I say, I wish tomorrow...really this is just.
Bangalore
Bangalore
Suroor TV
TV signal
advertisements
broadcast
cable
channel
distribute
programme
transmitted

SA: So Sakina what is your editing system?
SF: Editing system is where we edit all the errors. If the audio or the video is unclear. We correct the retakes in our programmes, whether it's drama or whatever.
Sometimes the videos of old songs are blurred so we edit that too. Overall editing takes place here.
SF: This is a software called Pinnacle we use this to take our import and edit the material.
SA: Do you broadcast game shows as well.
SF: Not as yet, but we're planning for it.
SF:(laughing)This was actually my room.
SA: This was your room?
SF: It was, but hen we shifted downstairs and turned this into the office.
SA: This was your room when you were a child?
SF: (laughing)Not really when I was a child, when I was in PU(Pre-University) or something.
Suroor TV
broadcast
editing
game show
independent channel
software
videos

SA: And you wrote this?
SF: Yeah because...
SA: Life ends as the factory starts.
Didn't have a room of her own since childhood.
SA: That's my sister and brother's, when we shifted to this house, after some reconstruction I got my room. I ____ everything in my room. But that time this channel started, and then I started working for this channel. Sometimes I still feel embarrassed about having it on the walls.
SF: It's down we're sharing it.
Suroor
channel
editing
studio

SF: It's a very simple software. We've made this at home.Not this, not this, sorry.
KS: ... I can start my own cable network if you help me.
SA: Yeah, tell me what you were saying about Macintosh, Kashif.
KS: That's a very complicated old software. This is very user friendly and it's easy to set up.
SF: This system makes editing very simple, you don't have to do much.There's an option of blurring and then you can overlay it. Now this is an ad we've made.
SA: You're still in college?
SF: Yeah.
SA: Which year?
SF: I'm in my final year, BA.
SA: Which college?
SF: Jyoti Niwas.
Suroor TV
advertisement
cable network
editing
education
software

Voiceover: Khwaja Chai...
SF: It's actually...
SA: This is manufactured where?
SF: It's a local tea brand, currently they sell it in wholesale.
Kambalposh Dargah
Kwaja
advertisement
broadcast
chai
community media
content
documentary
financing
independent channel
programming
sponsor
tea

We'd made a documentary programme on Kambalposh Dargah, about who he was, where he was from, just details about him.

So we showed it to them and they said that they will help us financially if we make an Ad for them and broadcast it.
SA: Like a sponsor.
SF: Yes as a sponsor. So we made this Ad for them, we didn't feature them in it, we didn't even show their brand of tea being used. We've tried to show that the fragrance of this tea is makes you feel 'so nice'.
We've made it different from the typical Ads for tea that you see, like a girl bringing tea for her prospective in-laws and if it's not good then the marriage is canceled. We didn't want to show such things. We just wanted to show people feeling happy about nice tea being made.
So you want me to capture your thing.
SA: Yes.

Suroor TV
editing
local channel
local media
studio
work force

SF: The main thing is, if the work goes on the office is clean. But now none of us have the time, because my brother is continuously running trying to figure things out. And I'm concentrating on my studies right now so when this work starts again I can devote my time to it. I used to constantly plan my study timings around work.But they've never forced me, I used to just come here finish my work and stop coming to office.
SA: How many people were part of the task force.
SF: Three people for editing and three people for changeover.
SA: Changeover meaning?
Video Cuts.

KS: It's playing.
SA: Now the heroes face...It's playing? I'll just cue it, we'll just find out where... In the bag and you also keep my number, I'll just give you a missed call.
LK: Today Lawrence is coming.
SA: Today for the opening yeah, but I'm not coming.But you all go Ayesha will be there. Ayesha is speaking also I think. Go, she will introduce you to Lawrence, it'll be nice I mean. If I can get there I will come. See if I can get there I will come because I had to shoot a lot of the...
KS: Six O' clock or seven.
SA: Six, six.
SA: It's already five, we'll have to leave right now.
LK: Just edit it and then we'll leave.
KS: Editing will take time, at least an hour.
LK: Can't we leave at six thirty, six thirty's the opening.
SF: You want it to be natural and...
Suroor TV
conversation

SA: Who told me that Call Center joke, please repeat it.
LK: Look at the camera and say it.
I've forgotten.
SA: But I remember, ' Why people working in Call Centers don't grow old...'
People working in Call centers don't grow old.
SA: Why?
They die before getting old, thats why.
(laughter)
SA: But why, why are you saying something like this.
Because they don't get sleep or rest. They work nights, when will they get the time to sleep.
LK: And one doesn't feel sleepy during the day.
Joke
Suroor TV
call center
chit chat
conversation
idle chatter

SA: If we want to...
KS: SO we can have around 10 audience members.Is that enough cause that's the max that we can have.
SA: Yeah. I was thinking if we have one camera here, so we get the audience as well.
KS:... Shaina what we can do is let the audience sit in this corner, and we can have one camera there which can pan both on the___ and the audience.
SA: Perfect, in that corner right.
KS: If you want we can turn it around.
SA:That makes sense even if we cant...
KS: I'm talking about this corner.
SA: So what is this behind the blue screen.
KS: You don't know what this is! We used to do news analysis every morning.
SA: Say it in Urdu...
KS: Abba and another person called Haroun Seth used to...
SA: And your father would anchor it.
KS: Yes they were the anchors. They would take a topic,a headline and discuss it's importance and relevance to the local people.
Suroor TV
community media
content
local channel
news analysis
programming
studio
talk show

SA: And the backdrop behind it?
KS: That is Sakina Didi Ke Sath (with Sakina)
SF OK that was Sakina Didi Ke Sath was a children based programme, where we used to give small children a small platform to sing and dance.
SA: And your audience...
SF: We used to inform them about the programme being organized and if they wanted their kids to participate in it. So they used to give us a call and then the kids would come here...
SA: Kids from where.
KS: From all over Bangalore.
SA: All over, not just this area?
KS: This channel was not available in this area.People here had City Cable. It's like houses in one lane had City Cable and houses in another did not. So people who didn't have City Cable got our channel.
MSO
Suroor TV
community media
content
local channel
local channel
programming
studio

SA:So I'm a little confused about this story. First it was City Cable then it was
Hathaway.
KS: It was only City Cable it was never Hathaway.
SA: ...it was never Hathaway.
KS: Hathaway Cable never took up...remove it gently, it shouldn't tear.
SA: Should we just lift it up Sakina.
KS: No, no...
SF: The papers will tear because of the weight.
SA: And then when you used to have Qawwalis here.
KS: We used to have Qawwalis here, we would mostly use the blue screen as backdrop and then work on the background in Chroma.
MSO
Suroor TV
cable operators
local channel
multiple service operators
studio

SA But that's for viewers it's not for the...
Video Cuts
SF: We would sit down here...
SA: And what would Sakina Didi (elder sister) do?
SF: I used to sit here, I used to asked the kids what they're interested in...
KS: A program called With Anupam Uncle used to come on TV.
SF: Say Na Something to Anupam Uncle.
KS: Say Na Something to Anupam Uncle, it was based on that.
SF: So we used to sit down here and the kids used to be here playing with dolls.
KS: See kids are innocent.
SF: And these small kids would speak to us while playing with the dolls. It used to look very natural.
Sa: And tell me, your audience was Muslim only? Or did other people come, the children and participants.
KS: I'd say 80 % Muslims.
SF: Urdu speaking people mostly.
Suroor TV
Urdu
community channel
content
local channel
local media
programming
regional language

KS: There is this other story that I didn't tell you. Once I was showing Dilip Kumar's 'Leader' on my channel in the afternoon, and this one Sahab calls me up and says why are you showing Dilip Kumar's movie during office timings. And he ate my head for half an hour, he said you should have shown it in the evening , how could you put it in the afternoon? He fried my brains so much that I handed the phone to someone else and left. Then he fried that guy's brain about the same matter. So basically our target audience is completely different, they like old songs, old films, Gazals and Qawwalis.
SA: The plays.
KS: Yes, the plays. You know all other Channels show new songs and films. This is what is not there, this is what people are missing.
SA: So you do online edits captured straight to camera.. I mean captured straight to computer.
KS: Yes to the computer.
SA: And then just burn a CD of it.
KS: Yeah.
Gazals
Qawwalis
audience connect
community media
consumer
content
local channels

Either burn the CD or just play it directly from the computer.Sometimes.
KS:Sometimes if it's urgent.
SA: And then your programming will happen how? Who would sit and do it?
KS: There was someone called Vasti Sahab, he was very experienced.
SA: I think that's my phone, it's going crazy.Just one minute.
KS: Show them the print out of a schedule.
KS: So this thing is very common at your place, this community channel thing.
PT: Yeah but very professional. It's more like they get money from the City, or the local government to produce the channel.
KS: Here I don't get any aid. I took a loan from one of the nationalized banks, by mortgaging my home.
community channel
content
local
local channel
media
programming

PT:...It's not a enterprise in that sense. In Amsterdam we have one local channel which does News and there are two consultants where people can register for slots, it's a 24 hour thing but you have to be an organization.
KS: Is it private ltd.
PT: No it's a foundation, it's something non-profit.So other not private enterprises can come and say I want an hour of commercial time or you can go I want to have an hour of programming because I have this association of Market Vendors. And we want to make a program every week about what's happening on the markets. Or you have something like the football club, so for one hour they have sports...
KS: No we got it.But it's a complete challenge for us. I'll show you the schedule about how we used to program it. What were the programs. We used to start at 6-6.30 in the morning with religious programs, because that's the time that people sit and watch. And it used to go on till 11.30-12.00 in the night.We used to work eighteen hours.
channel
commercial time
community media
content
local
non profit
programming

KS: She was involved. I was there.My mom used to take care of the finances, my dad was there. Then we used to have six cameramen. We had three boys who used to sit and change the CDs, cause we had to keep changing the programs and playing the advertisements.
PT: How much of the program would be live.
KS: Live used to be very less. Sometimes the news...Just growing up...not very confident.Every Sunday I used to anchor one live program from 11.00 to 1.00 pm.
PT: Okay.
KS: In which you just dial up and request for a song and dedicate it to somebody, for birthdays or anniversaries.
PT: Call in.
KS: I used to do that.
PT: What is the situation now, you say you used to, at the moment you don't.
KS: We've been having some problems with the cable operators since the past three months.They're demanding a huge fees from us.
Suroor TV
community media
content
editing
independent channel
local
local channel
programming

PT: For you to show your program they want money from you.
KS: Yes.
PT: And that's beyond anything you're paying.
KS: Each of them is charging 1 lac that is .1 million.
PT: For what.
KS: Per month.
PT: Per month.
KS: Yeah, .1 million.
PT: But aren't there any regulations that the cable operators need to follow.
KS: There are regulations, the government says...
SA: ...channels to be taken free.
KS: The regulations are there a set of guidelines are there but...
SA: Like you said the irony is that his father himself has worked on the TRAI act.
KS: My dad was working for Doordarshan, that's the national... For 27 years, and he reached the 2nd highest level in the organization he was Deputy Director General.
PT: So you've grown up with Television anyway.
KS: Yeah, yeah, I've been all over India because of my dad being transferred.
MSO
TRAI
act
cable operators
doordarshan
regulations
rules

SA: So retirement came and then you all came to Bangalore.
SF: No we settled here.
KS: 89 we came here before that... Actually what happened, dad got transferred to Jammu and Kashmir. The previous director who was transferred there was killed by the terrorists. So my dad had to go and take his place, we could not go there because it was the peak time of violence in Jammu and Kashmir in 1991. So for 18 months he was there.
PT: And he did not want to take the position.
KS: Because they tried to kill him about 19 to 20 times but he escaped.My elder sister is an engineer, she is married, so she was doing her course then I was studying, my sister was studying so we stayed back here.Then we were here only , my dad came back and then he went to Delhi and he was there for 10 years.Before that I was in Rajasthan, Hydrabad,UP,Kashmir, we've roamed everywhere.
1991
Bangalore
Delhi
Doordarshan
Hydrabad
Jammu
Jammu
Kashmir
Kashmir
Rajasthan
violence

PT: Then they'll ask you to play a song.
KS: We guys are very clever. First we had list of 20 songs and we would tell them select from that.
PT: Of the mike.
KS: No the list used to come, where I used to stand next to me the list used to come.That's my dad's novel. He's written a novel about the struggle of a Muslim woman in Bangalore city.
PT: In English?
KS: Yes it's in English. Very soon it'll come in Kannada also, the local language here.
KS: So we used to have a list next to me and we used to ask people to select a song from that.
PT: That would be like a list of the most popular songs at that time.
KS: Yeah, most popular songs. Some latest songs, some old songs and some songs for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.
KS: This is Windsor Manor one of the five star hotels of Bangalore.
PT: It's the Hilton right.
SA: No this is not.
KS: It's on that bridge.
community media
content
independent channel
local
request show

Bangalore
SA: O.K.
Otherwise you can use this to cut. That's a shortcut.
SA: Delete this clip, and now if I want to join the two.
It'll be autojoined.
SA: Autojoin. And if we want to clean out the sounds.
Both video and audio clean out will happen in auto mode.
SA: Yes, but sometimes you need to merge them.
Then you can ? lap? it.If you want to do audio correction then you should lap the video and vice versa.And if both haven't been selected then both of them will get cut.
SA: Then I'll do a general cut up,cut down.
KS: So where are you staying.
PT: Where we're staying here in Bangalore?
KS: Which place in Bangalore?
PT: Ballal residency or something like that.
KS: Ballal Where's that?
PT: That's close to the residency on Brigade Road.
Suroor TV
conversation
editing

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