So finally I got around to seeing “Page 3” the movie by Madhur Bhandarkar and loved every second of it. While a lot of people are talking about Page 3 as mainly a movie that talks about the banality and vain lives of the people who populate that page- I saw it as a movie that hits hard at The Times of India and the culture that the Jain brothers have spawned at Bennett, Coleman and Company. To some extent this was expected as this movie is produced by Sahara One which I presume is associated with the Sahara Group a competitor of the Times of India. But to its credit, the movie keeps its integrity and is not a vehicle for the Sahara Group to air its vendetta against Times of India.
That said, the movie is a brilliant expose of the editorial practices prevalent in Indian media. It depicts how the editorial staff is routinely overruled by the publishers for commercial interests and how the newspaper gives more importance to Page 3 as compared to other issues. Of course, the movie never names any newspapers but for anyone who is vaguely familiar with the Indian media scene it should be apparent that the movie is as much about Times of India as it is about the Page 3 characters.