(S.Ravi Seshu)
Come kaartheeka masam, an auspicious month for Hindus, Telugu television channels do supply devotion uninterrupted. Bhakti TV, an exclusive channel on spirituality being run by N-TV’s Narendra Choudary, is in forefront in telecasting special programmes to mark the month. Mind you, it has a great market in both the Telugu states.
To safeguard the exclusivity of the channel, Bhakti-TV has been organising a special programme, called ‘Kotideepotsavam’ on the sprawling NTR stadium near Indira Park in Hyderabad for the last five years. The fortnight programme proved to be a grand success with the involvement of thousands of devotees and special pujas. A huge stage with a Lord Shiva’s mammoth idol and special decoration look like costly film sets.
Every evening, the who is who of the then AP and now Telangana one after one would visit the venue to take part in the programme amidst spiritual discourses. The dignitaries include ministers, politicians, judges and heads of various mutts and every evening it goes on live in Bhakti TV as well as N-TV. The beauty of this programme is the TV channel’s magnanimity in supplying puja material and other paraphernalia to all the visiting devotees. Owner Narendra Chowdary and his wife Rama personally accord red carpet welcome to the guests.
“The koti deepotsavam is a grand idea and the way Narendra Choudary’s team conducts it is amazing. No other television took up the spiritual programmes of this magnitude. All editors fully immerse in the flagship programme every year,” a former employee of N-TV said.
Swami Paripoornaananda, one of the famous spiritual leaders from Andhra, was a great force behind this spiritual exercise before he launched his Bharat TV a couple of years ago. According to the insiders, the management is not at loss for conducting this grand programme. “It is obviously a big business as it has lot of sponsors. I don’t think Narendra Chowdary is doing it for public sake,” a journalist of 10-TV said.
The channel would make it a point to invite biggies to the spiritual programme every day. This year’s special attraction are the Chief Minister of Telangana K.Chandrasekhar Rao and the Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyan’s visit to the venue.
Apparently inspired by Narendra Choudary, Ee-TV too started spiritual programmes at major cities. On the lines of koti deepotsavam in Hyderabad, Ee-TV (Andhra Pradesh) is conducting ‘kaartheeka deepotsavam’ in Tirupathi at large scale. It also has all the ingredients of Bhakti-TV. Not to lag behind, TV-5 is coming up with ‘shivapaarvatula kalyanam’.
Whatever the motive behind the spiritual odissy of managements, Hindu devotees are relishing the programmes every evening. Away from crime, sleaze and politics, the spiritual programmes are widely appreciated by people.
