“The censors at the cable co-op are panicking,” she said, stabbing a finger at the paper. “They say the scene with the model pouring milk over a Shiva lingam while wearing a Cambro TV t-shirt is ‘provocative lifestyle branding.’ They want it cut.”
The year was 1993. The place: a cramped, incense-filled editing suite in South Mumbai. Video Title- Worship india hot 93 cambro tv - C...
Rohan rewound the tape. The footage was a chaotic masterpiece from a nine-day Navratri shoot in Gujarat. There was a shot of a 90-year-old priest chanting mantras, cross-fading into a young woman in high-waisted jeans lighting a camphor lamp on a balcony overlooking the Arabian Sea. Then, a jarring cut to a band of leather-jacketed musicians playing a bhajan on synthesizers. “The censors at the cable co-op are panicking,”
Rohan Khanna, a 24-year-old junior producer at the newly launched Cambro TV , stared at the tape reel in his hand. On it, handwritten in shaky marker, were the words: Rohan rewound the tape
Cambro TV wasn’t like the stodgy, government-run Doordarshan. It was the city’s first private cable channel promising a new fusion: C-lifestyle and entertainment. But their flagship show, Worship India , was an oddity—a late-night program that didn’t just show aarti at temples. It mixed drone shots (well, helicopter shots from a rattling chetak) of the Ganges with slow-motion close-ups of silk saris, retro Hindi film clips, and interviews with goateed fusion musicians.
He pressed play on the voiceover he’d recorded an hour ago—his own voice, trying too hard to be husky.
The door banged open. Meera stormed in, holding a fax.