Since the beginning of last week, I’ve been seeing various tweets by Trinamool MP, Derek O’Brien about a new programme which he’ll be featured on – called It’s My Life. Now I’m not a big viewer of Rajya Sabha TV, but thanks to Derek’s repeated reminders, I decided to tune in to see what the seemingly Dr Alban-inspired show was going to be all about.

I’m from Kolkata, so I do know quite a bit about Derek’s life. It’s not been all about Ma, Maati or Manush for the most part of it. Which is why those of us who are from the city always marvel at how certain aspects of his life are glossed over in the attempt to give him a more rustic veneer – well as rustic as someone can be with a crop of curly coloured permed hair that is.

It’s My Life is a programme on Rajya Sabha TV. It’s hosted by what you would call a “sweet and friendly” lady called Neelu Vyas. Her demeanour suits a show which is delving into the life of a politician. She’s affable, not very critical and definitely not very questioning. Which is why various politicians must be agreeing to be featured on her show. They know she’s not going to ask them the questions the nation wants to know.

When I checked on Youtube, since I’d never watched the programme before, she’d earlier interviewed the fallen from grace Ashwani Kumar, ladies’ man Sanjay Nirupam, Shashi Tharoor, Supriya Sule and others. Derek caught their eye a little late in the day it seems. But better late than never and just in the nick of time – before the June 2^nd bypolls in Howrah. For which, Derek had a meeting in a non-AC hall. Blimey!

So what’s Derek’s life all about? The programme began with the usual montage of shots of Kolkata. Which always make my city look more colourful and prettier than it is, much to my pleasure. They did call Victoria Memorial, Victoria Palace. Of course, going by the rest of our news channels, one inaccuracy in a 30-minute programme is quite good.

The programme’s first segment was on Derek O’Brien – quiz master, columnist, writer and author. What most Kolkatans know him for.  And unlike most of our other politicians who either want to seem older – going by the fact that their colleagues are all octogenarians, or seem to have an amorphous age – Derek’s happy birthday date was plastered on the screen for all of us to see. March 13, 1961. We got to hear about his journalism and many years with advertising, his work as the host of the Bournvita quiz show. And thanks to the collage of photographs we were shown, we also saw the many hairstyles of Derek.

There were lots of shots of Derek taking the host through the many sites of Kolkata, from the Strand which is the city’s answer to Brighton Pier through the rain-drenched streets of the city.

We got to see Derek O’Brien as quiz master. He took the host to his alma mater, St Xavier’s. They interacted with school kids. Why Derek was dressed as a schoolboy in this segment one doesn’t know, because he ended up looking like an aged Tom hanks in Big. There were questions from students – much like the infamous CNN IBN townhall. I for one was most impressed that he didn’t call anyone a Communist or a Naxal. Nice of him. What I got from his answers was that he’s all for social media – facebook and Twitter, and is also all for women. The entire segment was light-hearted, with Derek showing his ease with school kids, something he’s made a career of after all. It was like Sherlyn Chopra hosting Splitsvilla on MTV. It fit. It is impressive that this is his 25^th year in quizzing and 10^th year in politics. And quizzing and being with school kids is obviously the avatar of Derek which he’s most comfortable with and suits him most.

And then came the segment I’d been waiting for.  Derek O’Brien as Trinamool MP. Like Cleopatra and many Satyajit Ray heroines, Derek and the hostess sailed down the Hooghly in a boat. He sang “O Maajhi re”, okay no, but I felt he could have. He did speak about how it’s been such a learning journey with politics, Trinamool and Mamata. He spoke of his deep passion to remove the Communist from Bengal. Which always strikes me as strange since his father and brother were nominated to Parliament by the Left. And I can’t but remember him telling Rajdeep Sardesai in an interview that he would never sit next to a Left Front MP in Parliament. Of course, the hostess refrained from referring to this. He might just have tipped her into the gorgeous Hooghly. Which would have made for good TV, but…

He also said how he joined the party in 2004 because he believed that Trinamool was the only party which was serious about removing the Communist from Bengal. The Left should really have given him a ticket. I don’t think his brother Barry, who’s a brilliant quizmaster, would have felt any sorrow at not having got the ticket. And we’d have been spared from Derek’s angst against the Left.

According to him the biggest change which TMC has brought is peace in Jangal Mahal and increasing the state’s tax revenue by 35%. The anchor did ask him about the rise of lawlessness in the city. To which Derek put on his advertising hat and said that this impression was the LDP – the Lutyen’s Delhi Perception. And words like lawlessness are absolutely incorrect. So all the women who’ve been raped and attacked – and then insulted by Didi – know what they can do. Go suck an egg.

The moment which stuck with me was when he spoke about the Lok Sabha elections which will take place in a few weeks and that the mandate that TMC gets will speak for itself. He had barely finished his sentence, for the visual to cut to a shot of a dilapidated boat which was moored on the side of the river, lying on its side.  Much like the state of Bengal.

There were other advertising references. How a party is not a Sunlight soap that you can have an ad campaign. At the end of the day, the product has to be good. So much for SRK jumping around, mouthing Tagore’s lines in the Bengal ad campaign.

We also got to see the social media office of TMC. At least here’s a party which is proud of the money and systems they’ve put in place to maintain and expand their online presence and – not to forget – write those essays purportedly penned by Didi which are uploaded on facebook’s TMC page.

It all happens at the Trinamool Congress Bhawan.  Where Mamata who is a mother/ father (Derek’s words, not mine) presides over the Trinamool family. We didn’t get to see the family louts, Madan Mitra and his ilk, or the pater familias, Amit Mitra. But we got the drift.

And then we saw Derek the family man, with his daughter, bantering and being a dad. He did some good service for the cuisine of Kolkata and took the anchor to the much under-reported breakfast at China Town and spoke about the 33,000 Chinese residents of Kolkata. And how people are not vote-banks. People are people. You can take a man out of advertising, but…you know the rest.

And then we got to see how he begins his day at Tolly Club. At least there was no pretense that he is a part of Ma, Maati, Manush – that he’s a salt of the earth sort.

Did we find out anything about Derek, or was it all an eyewash? I have to give it to him, more than the show, that he didn’t hide much. Or anything in fact. He mentioned his second marriage, his step-children. He didn’t portray himself as this pure-as-driven snow, man-of-the-people politician. We got to see how he runs a very successful business, and does what he does because he wants to. A pleasant change from our politicians at the Centre who would rather die before showing on camera that they are part of elite clubs or are rolling in the big bucks.

Yet, where the programme fails is that while it is a soft feature programme – there could still have been some questions on censorship, why there is a need to continuously play the Opposition role, the destruction of whatever was left to destroy of the state’s image as an investment hub. But, no. It was all a little too happy happy, joy joy. Good for Derek.