What is the point?

Soon the 26^th of November is gonna arrive yet again, and it will be three years since that fateful day that added another wound to the already crumbling “Spirit of Mumbai”.  Kasab is safely in prison, yes, but besides that what have we achieved in the last three years in the name of justice? Kasab is merely a pawn in the entire scenario, what about the perpetrators of the attacks?

Whenever there has been a terrorist attack post 26/11, there has been a huge hue and cry about the fact that Kasab’s sentence has not yet been carried out. However, we fail to concentrate on the fact that the conspirers of the attack have not yet been punished. Quoting Wikipedia “US officials believed that the Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.) officers provided support to Lashkar-e-Taiba militants who carried out the attacks.” Then why has there not been much done about it? Alright, the Pakistani government claims that they have “Formally charged several accused, including LeT operations’ commander Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi” but can we ever be sure about that?

What have we really done about it? Yeah, sure, we have held candle light vigils and all that, but besides that what? Every time there is a blast or an attack, we are shocked at first, quickly calling and texting our near and dear ones, making sure they are okay; the shock turns to relief that everyone we care for is fine; then the relief turns to sympathy for the victims; which the next morning turns to indifference as we continue to ogle at news channels tut-ing in the luxury of out homes. We think, “Yeah, that was unfortunate,” but what beyond that?

Sine the past few days Kasab has been “Trending” on Twitter. He has been the butt of countless jokes, snide remarks and angry comments, and that’s about that. We content ourselves with venting our anger on social networking sites or on the couch before the TV set and leave it at that.

Let’s look beyond Kasab for a while, at one of our criminal celebrities (we have way too many of them anyway) Manu Sharma. Our outstanding courts allow a lifer to have fun at his brother’s wedding! Brilliant na? However it doesn’t stop there. The courts give him a minor warning, asking him to keep away from discotheques. This is how the judge spoke (in my head) “Come on Manu, please don’t visit discotheques this time. Don’t make it so easy for us, choose a more creative location for murder. Maybe someone at the wedding?” Now I am relieved that if some day if I get a lifer, I may still be entitled to attend my grandchild’s wedding (I will be pretty influential by then, don’t worry). Phew!

Back to Kasab, don’t worry guys, this dude is not going to the gallows, not really. Yep, he is sentenced and everything, but its not going to be carried out. At least not anytime soon. That is because he is now a different kinda pawn. Now every time we have a tiff with the Pakistani government, we are just going to wave Kasab before their eyes like a placard saying, “You did agree that this is your man, right?” It’s a filthy political game, and who knows when that is gonna end.

My point is that don’t sweat it, if on the 26^th of November this year you turn on your TV and watch interviews on news channels where the high and mighty of the nation are debating about how soon Kasab is going to be (or should be) hung, then just switch the channel. Because there is no point. 

Proud to be an Indian? You kidding me?

Indians are perceived to be one of the most God-fearing, cultured, and harmless race on planet earth. We boast of having gained independence through dedicated non-violence. India is obviously a diverse nation, with a variety of residents living in ‘mutual tolerance’. However, this notion of a cultured, God-fearing, and relatively non-violent race is limited to what the world thinks of us. What we Indians really are is something entirely different. Let me cite a few examples.

Once when I was crossing a one way lane on foot, a man on his scooty entered the lane from the no entry side of the lane, almost ran over me, and instead apologizing he instead had the audacity to yell at me for having stood in his way!

A few days ago when the elevator of the building where I stay was left open on the 3^rd floor, and when I complained about it to the third floor, instead of accepting their negligence, they gave me a “I don’t give four fucks about that elevator or the rest of the residents” look.

These instances don’t even begin to impress upon the fact that this nation is going to the dogs. These are just trivial everyday crap that most of us deal with all the time. Let’s instead talk about the shocking and heart wrenching murder of Keenan Santos and Ruben Fernandes that happened in plain view of a number a bystanders. This incident is a blatant proof of how the proverb ‘Each man for himself’ has become the mantra of every Indian. How can a couple of rowdies stab two men on a street within plain site of a large group of people who are merely watching and not even remotely responding to the scenario unfolding before their eyes? Please explain to me, how that is possible?

I was brought up in Bahrain and have only spent 4 years in India. I had studied Indian history back in school, and trust me I was in love with my country and its glorious past, don’t get me wrong, I still am. Its just the people whom I cannot stand anymore. Most of the time we are bothered with what’s happening in another person’s life, looking for something to gossip or laugh about, instead of paying attention to what we are doing with our own life.

Is there any hope for improvement? Hell yeah, provided we get their heads out of their asses and think in the direction of collective good for a change. If we think of collective good, and give up on the ‘I, me, mine’ mentality, then maybe things can change. However honestly, right now, i am on the verge of saying, "My Indian nationality is up for sale, any takers?" #Seriously.

Are we the ‘Bloodhounds’?

We are all well aware of the recent unrest in the Arab world. We are aware because the media from various nations fearlessly strove to report the happenings and the proceedings from those countries. Journalists from top-notch news channels and newspapers were present there for the same. However, the question that arises is: were they fair? Or have we been lead to believe that the situation was worst than what was actually happening there?

In the Gulf Daily News (GDN), a local English daily from Bahrain, there was an article on how the international media was blowing the issue out of proportion, referring to them as ‘media bloodhounds.’ Here is an extract from that very article, “Turn on the TV and you would think we were in the middle of a civil war! I have news for you - we are not. The only thing I see and hear coming out of the international Press are one-sided reports, authored by self-centered journalists being spoon-fed a diatribe of anti-government propaganda from those seeking to profit from instability and chaos.”

It has always been accepted as a universal fact that the media does exaggerate, to make the news more interesting. What is the role of the media? To provide blatant facts, or to add ‘masala’ to the news item so that the viewership is enhanced?

During the 26/11 attack, the media had thoughtlessly broadcasted the positioning of the terrorists, which in turn did more harm than good. Was it necessary for the viewers to know where exactly the terrorists are bunking at the Taj hotel? Wasn’t this done just to hook people to their TV sets? 

We as the media need to be more responsible. We need to think of the repercussions of our actions, instead of just concentrating on the ratings our channels and papers receive. Only then can we strive to achieve a balance in what is actually happening and how we report it.

Maa Exchange!

Had a free evening at my hands yesterday, as classes were cancelled and so got home early. Grabbed my dinner and settled before my TV set surfing channels, when the latest reality show caught my eye! Maa Exchange aired on Sony TV. For those who have missed the promos, Maa Exchange is the Indianised version of the foreign reality show 'Wife Swap', where the home makers of two different homes are interchanged. The show started off well with sweet goodbyes from family members to their respective mommies, and then the drama began.

Maa exchange seems like the extension of the re-known Big Boss, where the contestants have to reside with a set of people whom they have probably never met before. I personally found it very brash and meaningless. I mean, why force a family to the rules of a new Mommy for four days when as soon the old Mommy returns things are going to go back to what they had been before? It seems like a family counselling programme, but with a catch: the psychiatrist has to live with her patients for a period of 8 days.

Lets see how far things go for this kind of a reality show!

To let go and to reach out

Every now and then in our life, we meet people who turn out to be very important to us, so much so that we feel like life would be impossible to live any further without their continuous presence in it. This person can be a best friend, or someone a little more special than that. This person begins to feel like the whole and sole of our existence. We tend to feel, “This is it! This is going to last forever! How lucky I am!”. This does last for a while, and if we are truly lucky, maybe forever. However, more often than not, that person feels the need to leave. “Things seem to be moving too fast”, “I can’t handle it”, “I need space”, “we need to take a break”, these are the few standard parting lines.

All of the above had happened to me. The person whom I cared for more than myself had left. That person might return, might not. The questions that arose in my mind were typical: “Why me? Did I do something wrong? How did I not see this coming? Did I ignore the signs? What will I do now?”. My life was in dumps. Every day, I would wake up in the hope of that person making a contact with me. I would plaster a happy-go-lucky smile on my face, slowly dying from within. I resorted to the only anti-depressant I had at hand- my books.

This mode of self-pity and despair lasted for a while until I had this epiphany: The reason a person leaves is because the role that person was suppose to play in your life is over. You do not need that person in your life anymore. God has made that decision for you. Every person who enters your life has a role, a very specific one at that, to play in your life. And once that is done, that person ahs to leave. Nothing you do can prevent that. Because it has already been decided by a larger Force.

The old has to go to make way for the new. Things have to change for a person to evolve. But we are so caught up in our comfort-zone that we become too much of a coward at the thought of leaving it. So we keep clinging to what we know as familiar, no matter how much of a fool we make out of ourselves by doing so. In the end, the more we cling, the more we are delaying the process of change, the farther we are pushing ourselves from what awaits us in the future.

As the old saying goes, “The reason we lose something wonderful is because something even better awaits us in the future”. It is upto us to let go of the past and reach out to the future. It will hurt, a lot, but when we find that “Something Better” it will all be worth it in the end!

Book review

The Zahir

Author: Paulo Coelho

Genre: Novel

Publisher: Harper Perennial (Eng. Trans.)

Publication year: 2005

Pages: 336 (Paperback)

Available at: Crossword

Rating: ***** (5/5)

What is obsession? What is love? Are they two sides of the same coin? Or, are they so different that the mention of the former may seem like an insult to the latter? This is the dilemma addressed in this book by Paulo Coelho.

Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, or incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something, which once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness, or of madness.

The Zahir revolves around the narrator, a bestselling novelist. He enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. His wife of ten years, Esther, is a war correspondent who, despite of her professional success, and freedom from the conventional constrains of marriage, is facing an existential crisis. When she disappears with a friend, Mikhail, who may or may not be her lover, the police question the narrator.  He is suspected of foul play by the authorities and the press of having a role to play in the inexplicable disappearance of his wife from their Paris home. Was Esther kidnapped, killed or did she simply abandon a marriage that left her unfulfilled? 

The narrator does not have any answers, but he has many questions of his own.

He continues to try to keep the same life as when his wife was still around. But becomes preoccupied with finding out why she left. The insanity continues and becomes an obsession making even the most lighthearted tasks unfathomable. He reminds himself, of her support, which he at the time took for granted. She became the reason why he was now, a famous writer. In time he finds himself a girlfriend, whom loves him and hopes that perhaps one day, he will love her too. They become partners, supporting each other’s careers, but his fixation with The Zahir, becomes ever more intolerable.

Then one day Mikhail, the man with whom Esther was last seen, finds the narrator, and promises to take him to his wife. In his attempt to find a love lost, the narrator discovers something unexpected about himself.

A haunting and redemptive tale of love and marriage, The Zahir deals with the dark side of obsession and explores its potential of both fulfilling and destroying our dreams. It is a thoughtful meditation on faith, celebrity, marriage, love, and their relationship to freedom and creativity.

The Zahir teaches us that each of us without an exception has a Zahir. It is up to us what we make of it. It’s our choice whether to get obsessed and destroy our Zahir, or to live our life with our Zahir in the backdrop as something that we know belongs to us forever, and not to need a reassurance all the time.

A contemporary, all encompassing story that leads us through an inner and outer encounter with our worst enemy, ourselves.

Paulo Coelho is widely known as the master of human emotions. His books have affected a million people all over the world and changed their lives forever. His words have the power to get you thinking, make you laugh and cry in a span of moments. Love, loss, life, inspiration, dreams are the major themes of his books. They make you believe in the power of love, make you believe in yourself.

Some of my favorite extracts from The Zahir are stated bellow:

The day man allows true love to appear, those things that are well made will fall into confusion and will overturn everything we believe to br right and true. The world will become real when man learns how to love; until then we will live in the belief that we know what  love is, but will lack the courage to face it as it truly is.

It is so important to let things go. To release them. To cut lose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect any recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered, or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits into your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

 

Rating: *Awful **Best avoided ***Average ****Good *****Speechless

Paid News: Myth or Reality?

The concept of paid news has been a hot controversial topic for the past decade. This practice has seeped into out media houses slowly and steadily, eating away at the basic principles of journalism. Before we get any further, let us understand what paid news is. Paid news can simply be stated as “The act of paying money to representatives of media companies, print or electronic, to gain favourable coverage so as to satisfy an ulterior motive”.

Now the million-dollar question remains: “Is paid news a myth or reality?”. Is it a myth, that has been fabricated to defame the sacred (wink!) media houses, or is it a fact as blatant as that of the sun rising from the east every morning? The concept of paid news has gone beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media houses. The duty of the press, which is to provide accurate information to the public, has been sidelined to make way for money thirsty journalists. By the end of this discussion, it will be proved beyond a shred of reasonable doubt that paid news is indeed a reality that the media houses have brought upon themselves.

 Earlier, it was a general error to think that the practice of paid news is merely confined to the Bollywood sections of the media. It was common knowledge that stars pay the media houses to gain publicity. It happens even today. Stars pay a mighty price to appear on the “Entertainment” section of the publication or news channel. What is pushed under the carpet is the fact that there is yet another class of “professionals” that resort to the phenomenon of paid news as a quick ladder to success. They are none other than our beloved Netas. They have undermined the very idea of free and fair elections, by paying their way into the media to display the kind of portrait they want to put forth to the public. It is a safe and fail-proof means of campaigning before the elections. This method of publicizing ensures the fact that they can show what they want to show the public. Slick!

The right to information has become yet another decoration on the Constitution of our nation. We have reached a state where we are informed of only what the elite class wants us to be informed. The duty of the press, which is to keep us up-to-date of the actual happenings in the nation, is up for grabs. So whom do we trust? What is the guarantee that the next piece of news item will be unbiased and not guided by commercial motivation? Whom do we look up to? Who is responsible for the rectification of this issue?

Oh yes, we have the Press council of India! But oops! That organization is nothing more than a tooth less tiger! All they are authorized to do is send letters to the concerned media houses which can be chucked into the waste bin before even the seal is torn opened.

Another interesting question arising from this issue is that, “Is monetary gain the only vested interest of the media houses in accepting paid news?” Can it not be that the media houses are feeding some underlying motive by indulging in this unscrupulous activity?

Let us take into account the latest greatest event hosted by out nation: the Common Wealth Games. It was a sensation that had gripped the nation like never before, not because it was an international event of a superior caliber, but because the endless juicy controversies that surrounded it. The controversies had been showcased in the last two months, much later than they actually took shape.  It has been reveal that a majority of the news channels, newspapers and magazines blatantly refused to carry anti-CWG stories before July 2010 because of the advertising carrot that CWG was offering to the media houses. The media was warming up to this racket until the CWG fell flat on its face.

Sometime in November last year, Mr Kalmadi received a proposal from a leading English newspaper (with the largest circulation in India) for positive coverage of the CWG. The entire deal was worth 12.19 crore. The newspaper wanted an “Official Newspaper” status.

As a part of its extensive coverage, the newspaper promised special features, seminars, CWG quiz, marathon in major cities and towns, etc. the proposal also subtly stated that the coverage will have “the potential to form public opinions at large”.

And then comes the catch. It says: “It is also expected that with the influence that the “Response” department has over the editorial, the OC can get neutral or positive coverage from now to the games”.

The only question that arises is: “Had Mr Kalmadi agreed to this proposal, would they still have gone ahead with the negative coverage that they did?”.

The Press Council on India submitted a pathetic report on paid news stating that self-regulation within the media houses is the best option to curb this problem. Well, reading the facts mentioned above and the document given bellow, we can figure by ourselves how much of “Self-regulation” had actually taken place or is going to take place. The media is playing the role of the brand ambassador to the politicians, film stars and anyone else, as long as a few “Paties” and “Khokhas” are willing to change hands.

 At any J School students are taught certain Principles that underlay the foundation of journalism. They play the role of guidelines to a journalist. These days though the trend seems to be something like this: “Study the Principles of Journalism at J School, mug them up, puke them into your answer sheets, but if some of it still remains in your system, then chuck it in the first bin you find on your way out of the J School”. Is the future of India media bound in the shackles of Paid News? Let’s wait and watch.

(PS: Bellow is the Proposal that Mr Kalmadi received from the leading news paper regarding the CWG)