From Icarus to Ajax….

Scene : 1    Was watching ‘Saving Private Ryan’ the other day.In the climax scene when Tom Hanks tries to blow off the bridge to prevent Germans from crossing it,he gets hit with bullets fired from the opposite camp.And when Matt Damon rescues him after the intervention of Air Force,Tom Hanks looks in to the eyes of Matt Damon and says

“Ryan.Earn it .”

Scene 2 :    Was reading the Times Of India editorial yesterday(Best way to kill time) There was this article titled ‘Life is a Gift’ under the ‘Living  Tree’ section.The author argued that Life is a Gift in itself,and there’s no necessity to try something extraordinary to make it more valuable.The best way to make use of the gift is just by living. 

       So these are two different schools of thought.Each defining life with their own meaning.For each one of us, life holds a different meaning.For some it should be like a ride on a good highway.An easy ride.No bumps.No difficulties.Routine work.Boring at times,but that’s perfectly fine.For some others it should be like a ride on a roller-coaster.A thrill ride.Full of unexpected twists and turns.Sudden highs and lows.Many heart-stopping moments.But then that is what life’s all about.

So how many of us feel that life is not a gift and we have to ‘Earn it?’ Make a difference when we are around? Leave a mark after we are no more?

And how many of us tell ourselves ‘Why should I Earn it?Its a gift given to me.Why should I really make a difference?Why should it bother if others think I m not capable,when I know I am?’

“Satisfaction is death”

                   – George Bernard Shaw
    What is the limit then?and who defines it?

FLASH NEWS : Amitabh Bachchan has cold and is down with fever

    This was scrolling all day yesterday in most of the news channels,when I started to wonder if this is the end of the world.The Bible calls it Armageddon.Hindus call it the end of Kaliyug.And Mayans had predicted this before 3000 years.Maybe Nostradamus couldn’t for-see this and missed it somehow.And I m sure most of you would have voted for the sms poll which followed.

The question was : Should Amitabh take Anacin or Novocain for his cold?

SMS AHC followed by ‘A’ for Anacin or AHC followed  by ‘N’  for Novacain to 12345. Remember your vote counts.

If News channels continue the same way, I’m sure you can expect something like ‘Shahrukh Khan’s dog has diorrhea’ flashing before you in the near future.

This might be a cliched topic.But I want to have my say on this,here.Media is the most powerful tool in a country esp. when its a democracy like ours.This tool has been used make or break governments from time immemorial.Though only the form has changed the cause remains the same which is Freedom of Expression.

Everything was slow in the good old days.Life moved at snail’s pace.A person had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted.And so was information, which travelled slowly through word of mouth or through pamphlets.Sometimes messengers had to run long distances to inform their kings about victories or impending invasions,thus giving birth to marathons.During the times of Socrates and Pluto,Freedom of Expression was something unkown.Socrates stood for justice and spoke against the government which ultimately killed him.

Then came Gutenberg,who revolutionised the world with printed words.Little would he have realised that revolutions, that would change the face of the world would emerge out of printed words!!There were Voltaires and Rousseaus inspiring people through their writings,leading to the French Revolution.There was Harriet Beecher Stowe who’s book attacked slavery leading to the American civil war.If Karl Marx hadn’t written ’Das Kapital’ and ‘Communist Manifesto’,there would have beenno Communism or the Cold war.Even our own independence was achieved through strong patriotic writings in newspapers and books by countless no. of people from different corners of the country inspiring people to stand up against Britishers,like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee,Bharathiyar and Bharathidasan.

   Then the world slowly moved from paper to Radio,thanks to Marconi.The world tuned into the radio to listen to the Death of Mahatma Gandhi,the Cuban Missile crisis, and Armstrong say ‘A small step for man.A giant leap for mankind.’

  But by that time it was flooding innovations all across the globe.We immediately had the television announce the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and within half a decade we ushered in the communication age with the advent of Internet providing e-news and bloggers expressing their views on topics  ranging from Democracy to Death of Saddam Hussain.  

Lets consider only the print media and television for our discussion.Given the current context what are the major responsibilities the media,be it in any form,has?

1.  It should give accurate news to people
2. It should reflect the true feelings of a nation.
3. It should inspire people
4. It must be a watchdog,keeping an eye on the activities of the government and corporates 
5. And last but not least highlight all injustices in the society and bring people to justice.

So what is the point I m driving here?Given the power of the media,it becomes all the more important for it to act responsibly,fulfilling all the above mentioned duties,because as Spider-man is told “With Great power comes great responsibility.”

But what is happening here is exactly the opposite.I m sure you would have caught the following headlines in news recently.

“TCS cuts salary fot its employees.”

“IBM fires 700 employees”

  Now this would have caught you off-guard.Suddenly one would think that this might very well be the beginning of the end of the Indian IT industry.But if you dig deeper into the news you would realise that these are nothing but regular yearly activities by companies but blown out-of-proportion by the media.But to people who don’t care to do it,this might truly be misleading.

But the saddest part is the twisting of facts or misquoting speeches for the sole purpose of creating a frenzy among viewers,without realising the political and social consequences.Once when the Sethusamudram issue was raging across the nation Rediff reported that Karunanidhi asked the reporters ”Valmiki has said Ram is a drunkard.Did I ever such things?I only question the  validity of your claims.” But CNN-IBN flashed a news saying Karunanidhi calls Ram a Drunkard.Now look at the difference it makes and imagine the consequences if people believed it.So clearly we have the media failing pathetically in its first responsibility.

Secondly does it reflect the feelings of the people?Never.Everything is hyped by the the media to increase TRP’s or sales.Is it so very important that Nicholas Sarkozy comes with Carlos Bruni or not, to India?He’s after all the President of a nation and is visiting our country to improve our relationship and trade.But I found every other news channel and paper concentrating only on his lady-love,splashing her photos across pages.They managed to drag it for a week till they found another ‘hot’ news.For a week,it seemed like the whole of India was eagerly waiting to see Bruni’s catwalk.

 And another trend which has caught the fancy of the media is opinion polls.When are they going to realise that the opinion of a thousand people who don’t have a better job than sending sms’s to every other program is not equal to the opinion of a nation especially in sensitive issues like the latest Mumbai violence?

 Thirldy we have inspiration.Its better I don’t talk about it.If you come out not feeling depressed after watching a news for an hour or reading a paper is in itself a great service rendered to the society by the media.

 Fourthly it should be the watchdog.But given the fact that every political party owns a channel and it uses it to highlight only its achievements when it is in power,proves that if we go by its words then there would be no bigger fools than us.And naturally the opposite party goes out all guns firing at the government,accusing it for everything.I m sure you would have heard something like “Government is responsible for not bringing the rain clouds.Its been 3 years since we had proper rains and I urge the Central govt. to use article 356 to dismiss this govt. for failing to bring rain to our parched lands”. I believe these days only Doordarshan news is unbiased and can be trusted to present real news without any artificial flavouring.

I feel the media is doing good in its fifth responsibility.Without the support of the media we wouldn’t have known about the Jessica Lal case or the Noida murders or the Communal violence’s in Gujarat.Though there are aberrations here and there this job is neatly done and it deserves a bow. 

    So where are we heading from here?Unless people turn sensible enough and stop encouraging silly stuff just for its glitz and  glamour media is going to make a fool out of everyone.