Wake Up You Media

There is always one city that reminds you of many things close to your heart and those things can be your first job, great friendships, your first love and many other lovely memories. For me, that city is Pune.

Pune. The city that is popularly called as cultural capital of Maharashtra and Oxford of the East. One of the best cities of India. Of the world if you ask me. Its been exactly 38 months since I left that city but the memories of my stay there are very much the same today as they were on the day I was leaving Pune. I’ve been a frequent visitor to the city since then. But I’ve not gone to Pune from last one year because of my studies. But this month, I got a week away from my college and a golden opportunity to visit MY city. So, the reservations were done, friends were informed, even a detailed schedule (and a tight one for that matter) was made and what not. But I wish life were that simple and predictable.

The fourth estate played the spoiler. The so-called fourth pillar of Indian democracy – The Media.

Actually the main reason was my parents not allowing their son to set a foot into a city that is suffering from a pandemic called “swine flu”. Pandemic?? At least that’s what people like my parents understood from media attributing any death in Pune to swine flu. And its not parents if you can’t be afraid of the possibility of only their son catching the disease out of 3.6 million population of Pune. So I succumbed to the demands or rather fears of my parents and cancelled the whole plan and apologized to all my friends.

This whole episode once again raised the question on the accountability and credibility of all those 24X7 non-stop news channels of our country. There’s no denying the fact that swine flu was a potential threat but so is anything else like a road accident, pneumonia etc. But the magnitude by which media blew this whole swine flu paranoia out of proportion really makes one ask the exact business that media is in- News reporting or News creating?

My guess would be the second one. I asked my friends about the situation on the ground level and all replied unequivocally – its all media hype. Yes, we need to be careful when there’s a possibility of a deadly disease’s infection. But do we sit at home because there’s a possibility of a road accident? No. We choose to drive carefully. And this is what media could’ve done. Giving more information and advising the ways in which a person can avert a possible attack could’ve been more useful rather than blaming a poor swine for the death of even a diabetic!! One of my friends told me that people in Pune are going for a morning walk, with their puppies, wearing the protective masks as if they are giving a fashion statement.

But this is not the only instance when media went out of their way to make juicy headlines and increase their TRPs and finally the ad revenues. Be it 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Attacks on North-Indians in Maharashtra, Aarushi Talwar murder case- media has let millions like me down who believe that media can play a very constructive role in the country’s affairs without even compromising on their business.

It’s not that media has not done anything good at all. We also have the examples like Jessica Lal murder case and Teach India campaign where media has done an exceptional job. But it mostly indulges in activities or news that do more harm than good. Media made a lost, forgotten, rejected hooligan into a hero of the cause of sons-of-the-soil!! I wish and hope that our fourth estate will deliver what was expected from it by the founding fathers of our constitution.

And hey, no one can stop me from visiting Pune coming April.

Happy Birthday To You India

During school days, first two weeks of August were my favorites. One reason for this was that my birthday used to bring me many gifts and that was my day to be the cynosure of all the people around me. It was my day to feel the boss of the world. The other reason was the Independence Day. And honestly, it had nothing to do with the patriotism.

As was the tradition in the schools all over the country, everyone at my school used to switch to the ‘preparation’ mode. Everyone was preparing for something from Principal to teachers to students. Be it the welcome speech for the chief guest, extra curricular like dance, drama, group songs etc. And these preparations were a welcome break for people like me who detest studying (even today). But there was a catch. The ‘break’ was meant only for people who were ‘ performing’. So it eventually led to my participation in almost every other performance. This also justifies my liking for all these extra curricular till date.

You can be sure of reading many articles about the state of the country today, few black n white clipping of Britishers beating Indian freedom fighters, those old patriotic songs and movies, a detailed analysis of what we have achieved in last 62 years, prominent figures distributing alms to the poor, PM giving speech from the Red fort and many other things which I cant write here because of the paucity of space.

The point is, do we want to ‘celebrate’ our Independence Day by seeing/reading all the above things that are repeated every year? Do we want to again listen to someone on the television about his take on patriotism? Or do we really want to do something different this year? But before anything else, do we want to be patriotic citizen or a responsible citizen? Are the terms ‘patriotic citizen’ and ‘responsible citizen’ different?

To me, they are same. Patriotism includes, of course, fighting at the border, doing charity for the society, helping poor, and maybe joining politics or any government agency where we can take decisions to take our great country forward. But these are not the only ways to be patriotic. These are the popular or mostly known ways to be patriotic.

But the one way which is comes closest to my definition of patriotism is being a responsible citizen. Now being responsible is very subjective and can vary from person to person. But there are certain qualities that apply to every Indian. Being responsible is to throw your garbage in the dustbin and not on the street. Being responsible is to switch off the bulbs and fans before locking the door. Being responsible is to close the water tap tightly (come on, it takes half turn more to the right in less than a second). Being responsible is pushing your chair under the table after you’ve finished your meal in the mess. Being responsible is stopping at the red signal behind the zebra crossing. And there are many other ways to be responsible.

These things are those that I see daily in my college. And these are not the ones that are visible in my college only. Its everywhere you go. I’ve worked in one of the best software companies of India. The condition was same there as well. And literally, my heart bleeds to see so-called “literate” and “highly-qualified” people failing to follow the basic etiquette of being responsible. I refuse to accept that these people don’t know or understand their responsibilities. The same people who use to throw their coffee cups in the street will become well civilized when they will go to a foreign country. You can’t dare to spit on the road in US because that would cost you $100. So you follow ‘rules’ there. If you can do that in a foreign country then why this ill treatment towards your own country? 

Yeah I know I got a bit carried away. Everyone today glees over the fact that they can do what they wish. But I think we are not able to understand the cost that our forefathers had to bear to attain what we fall “freedom”. With freedom comes great responsibility. And let us not forget that. I’ve made a simple resolution this year again – to be more responsible. And that is best gift I can give to my country. My love.

 

Dedicated to Friendship!!

Remember that painting of a deer standing near a waterfall in a jungle with a beautiful home and two kids playing with their puppy in the background? I had one such lovable painting hanging in our drawing room. It was the essence of our drawing room. I was in love with that painting so much that I tried my hands at painting for the first time in my life. Of course I tried to paint a replica of that painting but whatever was the outcome, my love for my hand-drawn painting overwhelmed my love for that scenic beauty hanging on the wall. At that time I didn’t realize why I was enthralled more with my creation but after a few years, I got my answer. Because it was MY creation. I worked on it from scratch. And I remember protecting my painting till the time I got involved in more worldly things.
But there was a lesson from that entire episode. It’s in human nature to be partial towards their own creation. And that’s true for the relationships as well.
We have got two kinds of relationships. One is by the virtue of the fact that we are the children of our parents. And second is the one which we created on our own. And that’s called Friendship.
Enough has already been written about friendship but that enough never sounds good enough. Adjectives fail and nouns and verbs go into sabbatical when we try to describe that relationship called Friendship.
Friendship is just like that seed which we have sown, nurtured with care, protected from every evil and then seen it grow into a shadowy tree providing fruits of comfort, warmth, care and love for our whole life. Maybe, I used some adjectives from my limited vocabulary and my pathetic narration should be pardoned. But the whole point is that friendship is that one (and the only one) relationship which is not gifted to us because of our bloodline. We make it happen. We make it work. And we make it worthy enough to live our whole life for.
It was friendship when you shared your school lunch boxes. It was friendship when you wanted to be on the same team with few special people. It was friendship when you wanted to do what some other special people were planning to do for graduation. It was friendship you looked up to for money when wanted to buy an expensive gift for your first crush. And it was again friendship when you needed a shoulder for comfort after breaking up with some one you thought was love of your life. And it has been and it will again be friendship when you’ll need to make an emergency call at 2 in the morning.

The only relationship which comes closer to friendship is Love. But I don’t think Love can stand on its own. I would say its just an extension of friendship. And yeah..friendship is always older than love. There’s no love possible if you don’t have a friendship.

I’m lucky enough to have celebrated every friendship day with, touchwood, an ever growing list. And I hope that this will continue my whole life. Friends are like jewels in your crown and you are the luckiest person on the planet if you have even one jewel. So, how many jewels you’ve got?

Happy Friendship Day