Let me tell you about Int’l Emmys

As red carpets for entertainment shows gomdashnot that Irsquove been to manymdashthe one at the International Emmy Awards held annually in November in New York City NYC is adorably strangeThe cameras are as usual lined up behind a goldvelvet low partition Nominees file in to pose before the logosrsquo standee dressed in their designer best Only that the cameramen donrsquot know who these celebrities areMany of them have a sheet of paper stuck below the back of the camera with photographs to matchidentify those theyrsquore meant to photograph And this isnrsquot some esoteric arthouse global film festivalmdasheven say CannesBerlin for that matter Each celebrity walking in is actually worldfamous in their own countryOnly the photogs representing multiple agencies are local New Yorkers with the brief to capture stars from another skyworld as it were A lady announces the name of the country the stars filing in are from with another lady holding a placard with names in the order that theyrsquore standing Japanese stars wearing nomineesrsquo medals around their neck thrusting their medallions towards the lenses stand outldquoSmack me in the head when your guys are in thererdquo Shai the Netflix cameraman tells me for when the nominees from IndiamdashNawazuddin Siddiqui Best Actor Serious Men and Vir Das Best Comedy standup special Vir Das For India along with their producersmdasharrive on the red carpet ldquoSmack you hard or gentlyrdquo I ask Shai ldquoJust enough that the camera doesnrsquot shakerdquoThat the venue for such an award is the Big Apple couldnrsquot be more apt NYC is literally the migrant melting pot of global ethnicitiesgeographiesmdashfor mainstream entertainment from across the world to find spacelove in a nookcranny homebarIrsquove hung out with Nawaz in NYC Hersquos been left alone or mobbed depending on where we aremdashparts of neighbouring Jersey City can be Desi CentralEqually befitting that the Americans host the Emmys Which are The Olympics of popular television quite simply Only that the International Emmys is more specifically that still As you hear announcers on the redcarpet go ldquoColombia Germany Canada Egypt ThailandhelliprdquoAnd now only over the past half a decade India by the way Although the International Emmys have been around since 1973 Whatrsquos changed for Indian TV OTTs like Netflix Amazon Prime Video obviouslymdashthat place content to be simultaneously accessed globally Making worldclass quality as much a possible measure of achievement as local viewershipAs against traditional desi TV altogether based on ratings to attract advertising alone Mid rsquo90s onwards once satellite TV came into India its networks had no reason to match the quality of HBO from the same decade Whatrsquos the pointWhich isnrsquot to say quick sasta TV wallah stuff havenrsquot found Indian OTT shelfspace They just donrsquot make it to the International Emmys like they never did before Where the nominees across categories are first picked from the best representing each continent The jury Irsquom told canrsquot be from the competing countries thereafter A general rule to qualify I guess is that the productions arenrsquot USbased Although I think they mean it isnrsquot AngloSaxon mainstreamThe Crown for instance is as British as it gets It won the Best Drama Series Emmy in 2021 Those Emmys are called Primetime with a stronger American connection by way of active productionaudience stillThe International Emmys is the equivalent of the Best Foreign Film category introduced at the Oscars in 1956 27 years after Imagine that category as a separate Oscars of its own with further subcategoriesmdashthat I strongly believe the Academy Awards must consider if they havenrsquot Because thatrsquos where the world isWhat does such Emmys do to content worldwide Redefine mainstream gradually delinking it from what we deem as local which has happened with streaming services already Nobody thinks of Money HeistNarcos Spanish or Dark German as ldquointernationalrdquo shows meaning nonEnglish nonAmerican anywayThe biggest thing to happen to global TV lately is of course Squid Game in Koreanmdashwatched by more people on Netflix and maybe earth close to 150 million than anything else According to a BBC report Koreans donrsquot like Squid Game muchldquoThe team in Korea that made Squid Game did not anticipate this level of success eitherrdquo Pratiksha Rao director films Netflix India tells me attributing a ldquorelatable universal theme in a neverseenbefore settingrdquo to its astounding viewership I just think it was a great followup to the Best Picture Oscar for Parasite which had directed lay audiences to Korean cinemacontent in a way that nothing hadSomewhat the same way Vir Das tells me he wonders what nonIndians say Germans make of Chyawanprash or ldquoAndheria mod ki churailrdquo references in his standup special competing at the International Emmys against Francersquos Call My Agent S4 for Best Comedy no lessNawaz and Vir walk on the NYC red carpet Our cameraman Shai does not need to be smacked in the head to recognise either Pretty sure he wouldrsquove tuned in to Serious Men in Hindi with Nawaz in it that night on Netflix This is how the world could slowly become one Yup awards in these things matterMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper