Man vs. Cam: Showing Crisis or Creating It

Some time ago, I had been watching a news channel. There was a special news feature on Kargil war. It was about the role of Parvez Musharaf in the whole episode. After watching it I had a question in my mind, whether I hated Musharaf or I hated Pakistan, or I hated some particular group of people? There are people in Pakistan who like Amitabh Bachhan, Shahrukh Khan, and who admire the beauty of the Taj Mahal, same as we do here in India. Then what is the reason behind our hatred for Pakistan? Do we hate an ordinary citizen of Pakistan who is living there because he is born there and who has never been to India. He has never troubled us. How can we hate him? Virappan killed hundreds of people, we have our own people killing each other for silly reasons; do they all belong to Pakistan? No they do not. But we have more information about what harm people from Pakistan are doing to us than what our own people are doing. This is rather the handiwork of media. They make us form opinions, which are entirely influenced by the content or information provided to us by them. They twist, mould or modify it according to their agenda which is used by them to catch more eyeballs and raise their TRP’s.

Ayushi murder case was a just another murder case, neither was it the first of its kind nor the only of its kind but still there are news channels that considered it a crisis situation and gave 24X7 coverage to it. Not only the coverage, but they gave it as many angles as possible. They added spice to it and in this case the media also mocked at judiciary, police and agencies as well. It’s not wrong if I say, it was a crisis created by media.

Should I not term a situation a crisis situation where several media persons are positioned with their cameras, microphones and other apparatus for many days without any break? Yes, I should and I did that but I was wrong as they were waiting for Mr. Amitabh Bachhan, who was admitted to a hospital!

The recent crisis was the Mumbai Attacks. Everyone agreed that it’s a crisis situation, but our media got one step further and made it one of the worst by showing live footages which incidentally proved the greatest aid to the terrorists. They are so shrewd and courageous that they give justification that they showed what the people demanded. I don’t think there was even a single person who called up a news channel and dictated to inform him as soon as NSG team arrive at the Taj or tell exact number and position of commandos there.

The main lead story of Hindustan Times on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 disturbed me. It read-“Go score, India told”. I couldn’t figure out why it got published. Let’s assume this was the only important story according to them, but why on the front page, why the main story? What message do you want to convey to the budding cricketers? Instead of sweating out at nets do they need to spend time between the sheets?

In India there are many crises, for instance poverty, unemployment, corruption and many more. Media is supposed to raise issues and play a pivotal role to find solutions. On the contrary, media is adding one more kind of crisis which can be termed as ‘media crisis’. We are showing snakes getting married, full-fledged interview of a criminal’s girlfriend by a senior journalist (Interview of Charles Shobhraj’s girlfriend by Deepak Chaurasia), we also show “Gajraj” (an elephant) killing man brutally, and we also show which stone will get you a new job. There are innumerable examples of such irrelevant programs being shown by our national news channels. This is the time for our media to contemplate; no doubt it has immense potential. But we need to understand how to use our potentials.

Apples save lives

“Seyb” (Apple), which is pronounced almost similar to save in English, is the fruit which saved lives of four people, including me, stuck in the perilous hills of Himachal, in the fall of 2004.

‘Jindal & Company’ was the name of the firm for which I worked for four long and crucial years of my life. Collection of arrears was part of my job and I used to cover Shimla District of Himachal. For me it was the most learning face of my life. I experienced almost everything there which is usually written by writers to enchant their readers. This incident, I am going to share, is part of these experiences.

At ‘Jindal & Company’ we used to trade apple packing material to orchardists in Himachal. We used to book the orders over phone and deliver the required goods to them by trucks. After the apple season we had to go to them and collect the amount overdue. During the fall of 2004 we went to Chirgaon, a small village near Rohru in Shimla, by Maruti Zen. I had been there twice before.

This time it had been raining heavily for three days when we reached the village. We had to cross the village and scale towards the peak of a hill nearby, as the orchardist we were going to meet, shifted his dwelling from the village to his farm. This was almost thirty kilometers but three and half hour away from the village by car.

The road leading to this farm, at that time, was a stigma on even the worst roads of the world. I would name this road if someone asks me the way to hell. But I think I had committed some ghastly sin which earned me the opportunity to scale this road. Walking on this road was impossible. By car it was an act of foolishness which we performed due to the ignorance about the hazards and the immature age. None among four of us was more than twenty three. None of us belong to the hills and neither had any experience of such roads. I have a long list of excuses but I know it won’t interest anyone as we all are somehow stung by the “NOT MY FAULT” virus and expert in blaming circumstances.

The road was made by farmers who had their farms in that area. It was made of slate, as this is commonly found and used as building material there.When you drive on this kind of road the chances are fifty-fifty for anything. Our car was not fully able to follow the instructions given by the driver. At times when he steered it right it turned left. He couldn't apply brakes even because that could've been proved fatal in that situation. It could lead us off the road. The clay and water took shape similar to a top class lubricant and got spread all over the road. It was trying its best to push the car towards the edge of the road which looked like the doorstep of hell at that time. The car was floating instead of moving. We three were sitting at the backseat and were trying our best to avoid the glance of the edge of the road which sometimes appeared dangerously close.

The struggle between the road and us continued, meanwhile, we reached a spot where the road was rather broad and there was a space to park. The sunlight was getting dim, the rain slowed down and we were waiting for a suitable spot to get ourselves relieved of the waste water in our body, we parked the car beside the hill. There was an apple farm upside the hill. We saw the trees loaded with export quality apples. It was still drizzling and the farm looked very beautiful. The apples were hanging in bunches to the thin branches of small plants. These small plants looked very tired, but full of proud as if they boast of their beauty and richness.

We stopped there for a while and when we were about to move, an orchardist came with his laborer and asked us where we were going. He told us that we are almost thirteen kilometers away from the farm, but the road ahead has been damaged and it’ll take at least one day for the repair. There was no place to stay till next day thus they had put up a tent there. We decided to stay in the car only as the tent was chilled and muddy. We had nothing to eat. So for dinner we got the best quality apple from the nearby farm. That variety of apple is very rare and thus very expensive.

Somehow the night was over. The morning was devastating. Three kilometers back where nothing was visible last night due to the dense forest, now there was nothing except enormous stones. We were stunned. We heard no sounds nothing during the night, as we were packed in the car covered with blankets. The Gorkhas in the tent told us that last night there was a cloud burst at five kilometers behind our spot. We thanked the god for the new life and started thinking to return. The road ahead was damaged and the road behind got washed away. The scene was crystal clear and we thought God didn't plan a death by flood for us, rather it’s by starvation.

For the breakfast we again had apples. The same export quality apples we had last night. Due to constant raining all the possible alternate ways were blocked. Next two days we had that expensive export quality apple for all the three meals. These export quality apples saved our lives there otherwise it was impossible to survive in those conditions without any edible. On third day the road ahead got repaired and we made a move from there to our destination.

Life...is beautiful?

Life is like a girlfriend. It has the weird tendency to shock you at any point of time. You may get ditched while you were busy making plans. You may have plans for tomorrow, day after tomorrow, next month and so on. But you can never have absolute control on your life. For instance, you are going somewhere driving your car you may be good or expert driver and you may driving very safe but still it is possible that you get hit by someone who is frustrated and desperate to vent out his frustration, especially by making others frustrate.
This may sound very negative or depressing but unfortunately its life. In fact if you want to live like living being, you must take all these things positively otherwise you’ll end up becoming a zombie.
It’s true that you lose people when you need them most. But this truth is partial; it’s absolute only when we mention that we also get people at a time when we need them most. We have more significant people around us but we consider those more important who are departing. In the process we hurt those who take care of us and always make efforts to keep us happy.
Life, like time, has a very rigid velocity. Whatever happens, it moves on till the last breath. Sometime you feel like – this is the end. Instead one must recognize it as the opportunity to start again. The end point always followed by a start point. The advantage here is that at this start point you have more experience and you are less vulnerable. It’s true here also that you don’t have full control over your life. But you can anticipate the path; you can give it a direction and make efforts to move on it. The chances of success will be brighter this time. You don’t repeat the mistakes you had committed earlier.
The problems are the accoutrement of life, with the help of which, it teaches you all lessons. These problems come in different outfits. Most of the time they are received with anger, frustration, annoyance or irritation. This is obvious as they disturb the smoothness of your life. The angrier the reception for a problem makes it the more difficult to handle. Thus the wisdom is to welcome the problem. Keep your calm and get as close to it as you can. Now you can see the very root of it and can pull the root.
If this formula is implemented the damage is slightest for sure. If implemented accurately this formula has the potential of turning the problem in to fruit.