November 27, 2008

War

Am I the only person or are there people in India who thinks that India and especially its media has gone mad? Daily I watch this CNN-IBN and thankfully dont buy it completely. I tried to base some of my opinions in line with the masses, but more than taking opinions I find myself arguing in the middle of the night (alone, thanks to the time difference with Japan) with the media pundits!
Having said that, I can imagine what is being played in NDTV and Times NOW. Cmon this is about war right? A war of survival in the commercial India where if you dont give a sensational story for a guy who comes back at 8 PM after a tired day's work at office, braving the terror threats that are omnipresent, feared by the recession and his job, whose wife is most probably looking out for oppurtunities again to start working, thanks to the inflaaaaaaaaaaaaaation, he will definitely switch off the Tele and think again at his own worries or worse switch on the all india radio for some old hindi songs. You cant let him be careless. Can you?

He should be worried about the war now! But this war is already on. The war of inequality, the war of injustice, the war of languages, the war of cultures and the war of stubborness. He who has no time to think about why his roads are so bad, why the drain is full and overflowing again, why the bus cant hold only the 40-odd people it can hold and not the 150 others who "hang around!", he who wears a helmet and pained to see another one flaunting it on his petrol tank.

My man has no time to think why he was abused so unhumanly when all he did was to stop his bike when the yellow light went ON. If these social problems arent enough, he has to deal with the economic problems, a collegue has been asked to leave and a friend who doesnt know when his company will collapse. His boss has happily announced that your job is safe, except take a 10% salary cut.
My man, who is tired by a midday call from the credit card company reminding him of his bills and his agents mail about his policy due date. A common man, fighting thousands of war in a course of day only finds himself in a war against survival. I dont know cartoons. But if R.K.Laxman can still do it or any one half as good, please convey to the war hungry media houses in India that we are already in war. A war which was waged on him, when he did nothing wrong and he can only fight. A war where everyone runs after his hard earned money, he has to be cunning. Ruthless and insensitive even to the poor.
After so many wars, he has lost the hope of the government for he sees them as one collecting taxes from him and pay its employees, nothing else. For the leaders, for all they bother is that you dont turn up to vote, I will take care of it. To him, "I" and "My" are the most important terms in the world.
Because my man, now has to feel that he is a part of the society. He has to live a pseudo life. He texts the tele guys, to kill all the pakistanis, vents his anger for the day, sleeps in peace that night to fight another war the next day! For the tele guys who he knows are working late, but waging the same war, the war against the race of time.

November 15, 2008

Disease prevention!

I dont know what to do!
I am staying away from India for the time being and have this luxury of living life without breaking news of the Indian news media. Believe me, I am living a very peaceful life here. The Indian in me sometimes asks me to look at what is happening in your country! Well, nothing special. They have now found out a "Hindu" terrorist organization or whatever. But, as I said, the luxury of living in Japan made me realize that news is no more news here. I felt like watching a crime movie everyday!
Here are the news that had the prievilage of the Media
Encounter of a Bihari job seeker in a Mumbai
A Sadhu and a Guruji are arrested in connection for planting bombs
India won Australia to retain the Border-Gavaskar trophy
Among other more important news that reached me was more regional, Dr. Ambedkar Law college students in Chennai had a bloody (literally) fight among themselves and the state of Tamil nadu has been put on high alert!
I dont know if this is correct or wrong, but somewhere in our total news coverage the media and the news savvy citizens like me, We have gone more and more negative. When the stock market crashed on a monday. I am now prepared to tune in to a headlines stating that "Blood bath in Dalal street" or something to that effect. When a Language fundamentalist, ask Mumbai to respect Mumbai's culture, the whole of Media is ready to bash out with something like "Raj Thackrey lashes out at the Biharis, declares Chat pooja illegal!" And in cricket (I ve been writing too much of it off late!!) this funny line, "India outses Australia 2-0, Are they the new world no.1?) blah blah blah...

The world is not safer, with terrorists striking, fundamentalists attacking, finances galloping and life getting harder by minute as a result of this. But what good is this? Worse we have got some bad people out there! We have had the Hitlers and the Idi Amins in this world. Can some young college students have the same threat to us. They normally shouldnt. But they are, because of the protrayal in our great news media that more than fifty % of the commuters feel that commutation is a threat!

I wouldnt for a bit deny that terrorism or anything of that sort needs to be under estimated or taken less seriously. But, where are the positive signals to combat terrorism? I was in Singapore which woke up to Mumbai Train bombing they continuously play video on how to counter terrorism to the commuters. But bomb blast after bomb blast we have been told that how a man of twenty something place a bag in the garbage bin and walked away into thin air..we have no clue, though densely populated!

Give me solution guys, for I dont have one! Give this to your friends if you feel the issue is worth it! Let us all come up with a responsible way of working for the media and be more careful in handling issues such as terrorism and give a person, however big a celebrity he is, some personal space...Till the time we would have a solution implemented, we will keep this thread alive
Start now!