THE AGE OF MT

In the 1990s and 2000s, MTV changed Indian pop forever through innovative programming and VJs who gained their own fandom. When did it stop experimenting?

- Arun Janardhan

It was 6 August 1999. On his birthday, Cyrus Sahukar set out for what would be his first day at work as a video jockey (VJ) for Music Television (MTV) India in Mumbai. What he did not anticipate was getting kidnapped.

A few rough-looking men carrying hockey sticks grabbed him as he stepped out of his Juhu hotel. He was shoved into a waiting van and whisked away. A few bystanders called the authorities and by the time the vehicle reached Mahim, it had been intercepted by the police.

What the police—and Sahukar—found out much later was that the “kidnapping” was a prank, played by Sahukar’s namesake and colleague-to-be Cyrus Broacha for the latter's nutty show Bakra.

Sahukar’s narration of the incident—and Broacha’s recollection of it—a quarter of a century later is as ridiculously wild as it sounds. It also sums up, in one of many examples, the maverick nature of MTV India’s workings in the late 1990s and early 2000s when it, along with rival Channel [V], dominated cable television time, created trends, turned kids-next-door into VJ stars, gave life to independent music and provided unimaginable freedom to imagination and creativity.

MTV announced last month that it will close five channels in the UK by the end of this year after nearly 40 years (Channel [V] shut down eight years ago). Similar measures are expected in other regions, including Asia. Paramount, the movie studio giant which owns MTV among other channels, merged with media company Skydance in an $8-billion deal in August. The closure move comes as the merged company’s leaders seek to cut costs and as a consequence of how music is consumed now—on YouTube and streaming devices—rather than on television.