Not much surprises me or disappoints me about Delhi Times or Bombay Times. It wears its identity proudly under its masthead, calling itself out for what it is – an “advertorial, entertainment industry promotional feature”. Bennett Coleman’s former Chief Executive Officer Ravi Dhariwal has also spelt it out for us in his own words, “To say that our Education Times (a supplement) is news, or our Delhi Times (another daily supplement) is news is to change the meaning of news. They are not under the editorial control of the Times of India editor. Our main paper is news—and there is no paid news”.

Despite having our expectations managed right from the beginning, I have to give it to Delhi Times and Gurgaon Times – and it seems the supplements of Pune, Bombay and Bangalore as well – that just when you think they can’t scrape the bottom of the barrel, they pull out a special issue. One which I have decided to refer to as the special Sunday “Servants” issue. Nothing could describe better what was delivered to my doorstep this Sunday.

As part of its promotional blitzkrieg for the film, Talvar, which is produced by Junglee Pictures which is the “movie studio arm” of The Times Of India Group, the supplements had in their wisdom decided to indulge in some collective classism. Emblazoned on the top of page 3 of the Gurgaon Times paper (page 1 and 2 were full-page advertisements of course) was a headline in one-inch typeface.

EVEN AS WE LIVE TOGETHER, OUR WORLD AND THAT OF THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR US ARE POLES APART”. Under this was another highlighted six-inch box with the words – “I AM GOING TO ASK MY DOMESTIC HELP TO WATCH TALVAR, BECAUSE…”

This was followed by two big pictures. One of a still from Talvar showing the actors playing the Talwars sitting together with the caption, “The Tandons who are based on the Talwars”. Next to it was a picture of the two actors playing the domestic helps in the film, where one is drinking and the other is sitting next to him, with the caption – “Khempal who portrays Hemraj in the film, with his friends”. Note, they could have used a still of the last frame of the film where the Tandon-Talwars, Aarushi and Hemraj are all laughing the night of the two murders. But that would have been so counter-productive to what the Times’ supplements had in store for us.

The quotes which followed were headlined with “he needs to know that bringing home friends can be dangerous”, “to tell them to not take advantage of our trust in them”, they should understand our insecurities”. These were quotes from people who live in various condominiums, work at IBM, a homemaker, a jewellery designer – surprisingly no dentists. Oh Delhi Times, how you disappoint me.

This was the inside page:

That the reverse of the headline given above is also true and Hemraj’s family and other domestic helps might feel that they are so dependent on their employers for their safety, is of course redundant.

There was even a counterpoint:

Did you think the counterpoint would have quotes of “servants” or domestic help about what they felt about their employers? Or about how they felt about the friends their employers bring home? Getting the domestic helps’ points of view would make sense, but why should employers be held up to any standards. The myopic nature of this spread is even more shocking when you think of the umpteen cases of rape, captivity and physical abuse to domestic help by employers which are reported from our metros. Yet, this spread has quote after quote of employers whining about how unsafe they feel, and how their domestic help needs to be educated to respect the freedom given to them and so on.

Now, don’t forget that all this is part of a promotional package for a film. This is not being undertaken because of some recent incident which has occurred. It’s to push forward one of the film’s findings that the help most probably did it. It is good to see that the city supplements are wearing their opinion on their yellow sleeves, because they obviously feel that the “servants” did it. Yet, you’ve got to ask yourself, whatever the editorial/marketing teams’ opinion be, does the degenerate nature of this kind of editorial decision escape them?

Film promotions are fine and dandy, and I have great respect for Junglee Pictures for backing a non-commercial film like Talvar and allowing us to see a relatively new genre of filmmaking in India. But it’s bad enough that most people treat their domestic help as chattel. Must a mainline newspaper encourage people to voice their prejudices and equate their domestic help with murderers? If your bias-addled brain hasn’t realised the ludicrousness and repulsiveness of this spread, imagine the following situation.

A Hollywood film is made about our desi boy, Anand Jon (who has been convicted of sexual misconduct with seven different women) or about yoga guru Bikram Chaudhry who decided to molest and sexually harass many of his students. This film is then followed by a full newspaper spread in New York Times with headlines shouting “I am going to ask my Indian friends to watch this film, because…” with quotes from various Americans saying how they can’t really trust Indian men they’re friends with because they could be rapists and molesters. Seems offensive, prejudiced and racist?

So was this Sunday special.