I wonder why...

I loved writing. Specially my diary. Anne Frank is solely responsible for that. Unfortunately, after writing for almost a decade, more than a decade has passed since I wrote something in my diary. This blog is a desperate attempt to revive that - something I thought publishers would be queuing up for:-)

Saturday, March 26, 2005

The elastic limit of honesty

I wanted to write something on this ever since the ‘sting operation’ struck the nation. The nation’s hundreds of crores of viewers and readers bored from the staple diet of 70 plus Leftists protesting over the invasion of multinationals immediately latched on to what looked like a sneak preview into the bedrooms of people we iconised.

India TV deserves credit for that. Apart from the fact that they managed to skyrocket their TRPs in a single day. And, last but, definitely not the activating the thought process in fellow journalists that the Fourth Estate was still responsible for investigative journalism and not just for publishing a glorified corporate brochure.

India TV made me proud for that reason. It made me repose my faith in investigative journalism – something that is practiced by few newspapers in the country today.

Unfortunately, I belong to the old school of journalism which thinks there is much more to it than just working for a salary. It is a social responsibility that you are carrying on your shoulders. It is a passion you were fulfilling. How else can you justify 16-hour workdays for a pittance?

My allegiance notwithstanding, I do have my reservations on the way the whole sting operation was executed. Six months, you continue calling a person, forcing him to fall into the trap and be infidel. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the casting couch doesn’t exist. Forget Bollywood, the couch perhaps exists in every industry in its own veiled and hush-hush fashion. It’s just that Bollywood is always under the public scanner and thus we come to know and love to read about such scandals. I am just questioning the manner in which India TV did it.

I remember a similar incident that happened during my journalistic days. The local metro page was running out of stories on that day. The crime beat and police control room failed to produce anything and the political correspondent was the last hope. So what does our man do? He calls up top leaders of two factions of the same political party. Talks to the first one and coaxes him into making a statement against the other leader. And once the correspondent gets that, he calls up the other leader and tells her about the kind of statements being made against her by the other faction leader! And, in return gets another quotable quote. The result? A Page 1 story on two factions of the same political party fighting with each other.

Now would you call that investigative journalism? I wouldn’t.

You might ask, what has that got to do with the sting operations? I feel, like in the above example, in the sting operation too, the desired end result was sensationalism. But that’s not what I want to write in this blog.

Correct me if I am wrong, but for the last few weeks I am constantly having this feeling that we humans are like elastic strings. The moment you cross the elastic limit, the string breaks. Perhaps, our conscience has an elastic limit. And, probably, our honesty too.

Take the example of the traffic constable we all love to make fun about. Violate a traffic rule, and you can get away with a 50 buck bribe. If you are caught by an officer, 50 won’t do. You would probably require a 100 rupee note. And the elastic limit increases proportionately with the rank.

If you commit a larger crime, you would probably require hundreds, thousands, lakhs or even crores. The fact of the matter is that everything has a price tag attached to it. Be it in our country or any Western model country.

The point I am trying to make is that all of us have probably become elastic. The limit is what changes from person to person and distinguishes an honest person from a dishonest one. A loyal human being from an infidel one.

Aman Verma and Shakti Kapoor succumbed of six months of seduction. Probably a die-hard loyal guy would need six years. But eventually he too would succumb.

What do you think?

Monday, March 07, 2005

You've got mail...

I still remember the day I opened my first email account. It was a hot and sultry afternoon in the summer of 1997 and I was surfing the Net at the British Council Information Centre. In those days, BCL hosted one of the few cybercafés in Kolkata.

Having an Internet connection was a status symbol that the rich and famous liked to showcase. And why not – one had to pay 10000 bucks for a 500 hour connection! And I had to pay 100 bucks for surfing the Net for an hour in BCL. Sounds unbelievable today, almost a decade down the line, but that is how it was then.

In those pre-Google days, one had to depend on the good old Yahoo for searching the Net. And Sabeer Bhatia and his Hotmail was the coolest thing on the terra firma.

But yours truly had to be different! Because of which I chose a career in journalism despite a degree in physics. And because of which I preferred to open my first mail account with Yahoo and not Hotmail.

It was nothing short of a status symbol, when I went back to office and told my colleagues about my latest acquisition. Till then most of us were using the common office ID. I was one of the first few to get a personal email ID. Immediately I contacted my administration department to get the same printed on my visiting card. But, sadly enough, to be rudely told that it was against corporate policies to print such personal mail IDs on business cards.

The eagerness with which I used to wait for a mail – albeit a spam– in my mailbox seems so ridiculous now. I would make it a point to go through every line of all spam mails to make myself feel more important. And if it was a personal mail from a friend, no one could stop me from skyrocketing to cloud nine – such was the ecstasy. And on days when my colleague got a mail but I didn’t – it was agony raised to the power of infinity!

A year passed by. Cupid struck and spam mails lost their significance. Expectedly, something else took the place. The long wait for a mail from someone special was a very soothing pain (if there is anything like that). Every comma, every full stop and every word weighed so much. One could read it over and over again. Find newer meanings every time he went through the same old words. Get excited at the slightest hint of the four-lettered word that we all want to hear during such times.

Another couple of years passed by. Cupid disappeared in the midst of harsh realities and infidel genes.

But the omnipresent (web-based) office mail ensured that the significance of emails still remained. Initially it was welcome. As always, the number of mails you received determined your seniority and position in office. But slowly the want for receiving mails nosedived. The fear factor crept in. Every time the new message flag stood up, one would get scared.

Was it another stinker from the boss? Was it a forwarded joke from the friend you tried to avoid? Or was it from someone you really want to get a mail from?

Keep watching this space till the next phase of email bug hits me.