'The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were….' David Brinkley, American television newscaster.

I miss Laloo…. Pardon me if this piece may read as somewhat distracted. It's not only because I am missing Laloo from the depths of my couch potato soul. It's also because I am writing this while simultaneously surfing four news channels. All covering Rakhi Sawant who has fallen into a 40-feet deep borewell which Mika had cunningly dug under the stage on which she was performing in Bhatinda. And, even as we speak, there is live footage of Rakhi taking off her…I don't really know what to call it because it's so little that it defies description. Anyway, Rakhi has just spoken and wants all of India to know that she's only taking it off because....

I'm sorry. Her explanation has been drowned out by the noise of the fight that has just broken out between Mika and one of the news channel's anchors as to who has the first right to convert this footage into a new music video which will be called…Jungli Kabootar because that is what Rakhi actually called Mika. (For the uninitiated, that is equivalent to calling someone a stinky warthog with vomit green warts.) Live. On Aaj Tak. It was a few days after Rakhi had demanded a public apology from Mika for - is the word that I am looking for 'kissing' - her at his happy-birthday-to-me party. Naturally, Mika refused, as any self-respecting Pind-ka-lassi-piya-hua-mard-ka-baccha would have. As fur, feathers and allegations flew fast and thick, aided and abetted by the media (print and television) doing their bit to keep things on the boil, Aaj Tak invited the two parties to come on air and….Well, I don't really know why. Kiss and make up maybe?

Besides, this was Breaking News material of national importance. Anyway, it was riveting stuff. There was Rakhi, barely recognisable because her hair wasn't orang-utan orange and she was dressed in what you and I refer to as clothes. Mika was only a voice-over. (Maybe, he's the shy sort, poor boy, not wanting to share the same TV space with the lady whose throat he had recently tried to climb down.) Soon, things began to heat up, voices began to get raised and before you could say 'Chumma de de', Mika was telling Rakhi that it was time she 'sudhro-ed' and bought herself some clothes. Because had she looked at herself lately in the mirror? (Intelligent boy, this Mika…took the words right out of our mouths.) To which Rakhi - now madder than a wet hen with PMS - replied, "Aur tum! Tum kaise dikhte ho?! Jungli kabootar ke jaise!"

For those all-too-brief, delightful moments, I even stopped missing Laloo. I mean, this is what news television should be, isn't it? It's so much more fun than looking at bloody bits of people strewn all over the place who can't talk anyway. Or watching the same tired ol' clutch of celebrity-expert types go yakkity-yak on how dangerous it is or not to drink pesticide-laced cola. I'm thinking it's probably more dangerous to watch yet another discussion about it. Or yet another stretch of blurry footage with incoherent mumbling, supposedly a sting operation of some man telling you that it will cost you four lakhs to get your French poodle (or is it Mexican Chihuahua?) admission into the city's top-notch pooch-manners-training school.