The News is dead..... Long live the News

Any Indian having the tenacity to watch the news channels nowadays will know that the news, as we knew it, is dead. In the city of corruption and the footpath of populism, News has died unnoticed. The saddest part is that not many are even condemning this death (although some people are having "sleepless nights" over the predicament of the arrested terror suspects in UK and Australia!)

Yesterday, a 7 floor building collapsed in Borivali (W) of Mumbai. And the prime concern of all the news channels was, whom to be blamed for this act. Today morning, the news was.... "20 feared dead in Mumbai building collapse"......"200 feared dead in the plane crash in Brazil"...... "Amitabh Bachchan is no longer a farmer".......Yes, my dear brothers and sisters! that Mr. Bachchan is not a farmer anymore, is a matter of grave national importance today. That in some obscure village in Haryana, a Baba is able to do what any street magician could, is a matter of grave national importance today. That Ms. (or Mrs..... who cares) Rakhi Sawant wants to talk to a couple of conjoint twins, is a matter of grave national importance today.

The Press (pardon me for using the term but a more appropriate term has not been coined yet) has conveniently turned the definition of news. So much so that, after a point of time, we have even stopped complaining about it. It is like a daily soap for us now. So in the language of popular journalism today, "Who is to be blamed for this murder of News?"..... The answer is unfortunately, all of us. It is a vicious circle, you see. First, we asked so they provided. Now, they provide and we have learnt to consume.

The press is devoid of any discretion, soul or ethics today. They know what to report but not how to report it. They know where to start, but not where to end. In the land of the popular press, a defendant is guilty unless proven otherwise. And sometimes, he is guilty, even if proven otherwise. The press has its own parallel judiciary going on. The poor is always correct, just and victimised. The rich is always wrong, corrupt and the oppressor. Road rage and road accidents are not deemed news-worthy so long as a rich drunk kid is not involved in it. News, today is not that a rape has been committed. The news today is how the rape was committed. If possible, they may even reconstruct the whole scene.

The solution? Stop these 24 x 7 news channels. It is quite alright if they show the news only once in a couple of hours. Put on some movies or some TV serials in the mean time. Make the press responsible for what they publish or show. If they make a mistake or a wrong judgement then make them pay for it. Make them accountable. Let the press, not be the only one to ask questions. Make them answer too.

That's all for now, I just got the news that the News is about to be cremated in a municipality cremation ground. Without a post mortem of course, because that could make the whole sociaty stink. So the least that I can do is pay my last respects.

Be in touch

It is said that during World War II, when there was a severe shortage of medication for the newborn children, the nurses were advised to just hold the child from time to time. It was believed that just a self assuring touch of a person would motivate the child to live through its toughest time. And it really did work. Today, in an age where everything needs to be named fancy in order to be accepted, we know of it as "touch therapy". Its a pity that we dont practice it that often.

Why do we believe that just because a child has grown on to become an adult, s/he doesn't need the self assurance of that touch any more? Haven't we ever noticed that sometimes, the best way to calm down a friend is to just give him or her a hug? If not a hug, even a tap on the shoulder or a soft rub on the back of the palm? I believe that all we need to get through some of the toughest moments of our life, is an assurance that we are not alone in this..... that there is someone to catch hold of us..... or at least to look at us as we go down in the battle of life... to cry for us or sigh for us as we die..

So go ahead... spread the touch.... irrespective of race, religion, age or gender..... You never know how easy you've made life, for the one you love or for the one you care..

Looking through the window from the hell above

Since ages, Man has always been inspired by animals and organisms much smaller than him. An ant shows hard work, a spider shows perseverance, so on and so forth. Its like amidst all the worries, weaknesses, girl friends' birthdays and mother-in-laws, we get some time to look down towards these humble and simpler creatures, and we get inspired by the way they carry on with life. I have a completely different theory to this. You see, these animals survive through all those tumultuous experiences only because they do not have an option. A worker ant cannot go on strike saying that the load is too heavy, the spider cant say that it'll not weave the web because its so darn frustrating. They go on with their lives, because they don't have an option. As far as I know (which is, by the way, quite less), Man is the only animal who has tenacity to commit suicide. Only man is stupid enough to give away a life for which any other animal on earth would die for. And basically, most the options and preconditions that make our lives seem so difficult, come from this. We just give ourselves a lot of options. These options sometimes make man, an irrational animal. For instance: I have now been given an arduous task of choosing between two equally lucrative internship options. And I am so confused that yesterday I thought, I wish I'd just fail in one of the interviews. If I'm left with only one option, maybe my life will be easier. Is this rational? (Ok, that was a rhetoric question)

So once in a while, its always so much more liberating to just have an out of body experience. To leave the confines of skin and society and just soar up in the sky. Then just looking at one's life from the skies above. I'm sure the sight will be as inspiring a the sight of an ant on the ground. Which brings me to the topic of this blog. Why call it a window from hell? Because I too suffer from the syndrome which is gripping the whole of humanity. The Sour Grapes Syndrome. I know that I'll have to come down someday. So let me buckle up and call it hell from the very beginning. That softens the fall, a little.

The neighbourhood IT provision store

I went to a local IT fair today. What I saw, sadly, didn't surprise me. It was just like any neighbourhood grocery store or a local vegetable market. People hawking their "High Quality" "imported" "state of the art" machines...(Made in China... I rest my case)... A market where quality is no longer a differentiating factor..... a market where the primary motive is to grab eyeballs.... because the goods are basically of same nature and stature (Good or bad, you decide).... It is a sad way for technology to die... a death not from neglect... but from too much attention.... IT has become an ugly two letter word nowadays.... Now, I know that IT really stands for Information Technology (was that the 15th question?)..... but you know.... IT seems to be so talked about that people today know what it is but don't know what it stands for. IT stands for propagation of Information through the use of technology. So, keeping in mind my wonderful concept of baby steps... lets first define Information

–noun
1. knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; news: information concerning a crime.
2. knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data: His wealth of general information is amazing.

The underlying concept in both these definitions (Long live, Dictionary.com) is the word Knowledge..... I don't know how you define knowledge.... but I'm sure that you'll also agree that today, Knowledge is just one of minor by product of the larger process of Information..... Today, Information means ability to pirate some software, rip some songs, realize some of the wildest "fantasies" known (or even unknown) to man..... where is knowledge?...... try to Google it... I'm sure you'll find it in the midst of some porn sites..... Sadly, Information today is going to where everyone came from....

I think I lost something...

Major Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was a development engineer in the Rocket Sled experiments being conducted by US Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base in the later part of 1940s..... But we don't know him for that.... we know him for the famous "Murphy's Laws"..... A series of sayings or mis-sayings which are inadvertently attributed to his genius.....

It all started with "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"....... then the series grew..... Everyone likes passing out wisecracks.... its like passing gas.... you just cant hold it in..... but when its out, this almost always results in an embarrassing situation.... so we start looking at the next available fat guy around us... And there is always a fat guy around!!!.....thats the case with wisecracks too... they have a tendency to boomerang....... so people conveniently, donate their illegitimate sayings to the parentage of poor old Murphy!!...... one such gem is "You'll always find what you are looking for, at the least expected place you expected it to be"....... so the documents you need are always the last one in the stack.... the coin will always roll to such a deep crevice beneath the refrigerator, that you feel that you'll reach China if you go a little further!!......We can generalize this to the people in our lives too.....

We always find the people we need, at the least expected place, at the least expected time and under the least expected situation...... it could be the nerd you see on the first bench of the class... it could be the bully, whom you may have only seen through the web of your fingers covering your face in trepidation..... you may find a hero in your Dad.... or your best friend in your mom.... you may find long life support in your no-good siblings.....

But there are certain rules to this.....You cannot preconceive the inevitable by looking first at the place you least expected.... because....... A) you never know your least expected place till you actually come across it... and B) because wisecracks stop working when people become wise!.......... So we are supposed to go on looking...... and hoping that the place we see next... is the place we least expected.