The Lego & the Nation

It all starts in a pretty way – your Son demanding to have the Lego set & an indulging parent that you are, you complying with it. Pretty, simple! What’s the risk? It’s expensive, but when the credit card is there, the interest & the premium will pain you later. It is creative nonetheless & in the ways of amateurs, visionary too.

The promise of your Son, doing magic with the Lego is intoxicating, your dreams, far surpassing the child’s imagination. The child has already showed you the Lego Transform-ers and you believe in him. The Lego, your Son, the Transform-ers – Time meets Einstein meet Universe.

All so grand, all so good, all so euphoric, all so cute. Just that your child is called Modi…The Lego is unboxed in no time amidst the claps of the proud you & the child sets to work. You expect nothing less than Ram Setu really? The red pieces for economy, the greens for polity, the yellows, your favorite for sense & the blues for the society. The creator & the pieces get to work diligently. Night & day, day & night, the boy is at it and you can never get over the joy of his sheer dedication, his single-point calling in life. Destruction being the Papa of creation belief at heart, the child makes & breaks the brochure structures like Planning Commission in an arrogance of the one truly gifted. All too good, all so unique! Your boundless bundle of irrational exuberance! The red figurine toppled there, the orange figurine installed here, the GST blocks moving like Rubik’s cube that you have zero know-how of, the belief that the boys knows it all. The demonetization structure looks twisted, and your stretched out rationality is curbed because the Ram statue is grandiose. It’s your child after all, keep clapping on. & he has a partner in crime/play, the BFF all kids must have, the affable bully next door. The two of them together, the bulldozer & the architect, move the pieces with the zeal of a bull in a china shop and you, face painted in the tri-colour of nationalism, patriotism & religious fervor look-on, cheer-on.

Journalist Don't wait for Middle-class awakening

Were the prime time ever like this? Forget the entertainment, the discussions, the deliberations, the theories of conspiracies & the opinions? AIR was dull & aptly forgotten, DD a distant memory of avuncular anchors & instant fashion – PrimeTime was begotten by a lad called Shohaib Illaisi & for a time India’s Most Wanted may have held as much sway over popular imagination as Alif Laila!

This was followed by a forgettable innings of Star-NDTV alliance, forgettable in impact but a consummation that gave birth to the modern day journalist (by definition of modern day journalism).

Deed done, it was time for Renaissance, & a young Rajat Sharma gave use those 1^st glimpses of today’s media courtrooms with Aap ki Adalat – the tonality was witty yet the seeds of ridicule were sown back then. Gradually as Aliens abducted cows & Gods developed a fancy for appetite of common man’s food, News Prime Time actively competed with scheming MILs & docile DILs.

& there was nothing wrong with this narrative, why can news not be entertainment, why can truth not be unbelievable or frivolous or yes even be doubtful? It was entertainment – we really did not need issues – who really wants to know about displaced cultures for which NBA strived, who really cared about Dalits & Adivaasis? A growing nation needs not issues but solutions and a guilt-free conscience for indulgence. & we did cry & made candles in an electrified India an item of activism – Uphaar happened & so did Bil Clinton’s visit!

So far, all good – a frivolous race living in with an uprooted media. & then somewhere the Nation realized it needed to know…Know not as knowledge but know as a means to realise its middle class nationalistic aspirations. News began a transformation in the age of Social Media – entertainment was pushed to segments, action packed entertainment started dominating the narrative. The Angry Young Man of 70’s cinema was taking over News & the cynical among us watched in amusement as we were taken over, pushed to minority, labeled (along with family & friends) anti-nationals & then strategically silenced. Today, a Ravish can blame the social media, other media, we the people, but what did he do or a Barkha or Rajdeep did? Today, the only reason the majority follows them is for the abuses, or some like us, who saw through this transformation without ever realizing it.

We are protesting over dead bodies now, protest a skill that we have so well mastered, an act we specialize in without any results. We were cynics then, hopeless now. We have done everything but make one sustained resolution to put a stop to this demonization of media. News are getting louder by the day, yet the silence of press is deafening.

A journalist was a clown when she/he reported on Ravan’s lost airport with c-grade vfx, yet a clown that was harmless. Today, your community has lost its public respect. You lost values then & the innocuous looking frivolity has come back to haunt you today. The brave among you are dying & condolences are looking hollower by the day. The celebration over their passing is more frenzied, more evoking than the muted speeches in Delhi!

Why is the journalist feeling weak when her strength has the potential to transform opinions so superfluously formed over bare propaganda. Gauri Lankesh was not the 1^st, she won’t be the last & she knew this. She still chose her path, her destiny was for a cause, do not defeat it by your silence.

You may be a few, mostly unheard warriors, some troll-abused, but march on. Don’t wait for a middle-class awakening. You made them such, you lost your respect, now regain it. The responsibility lies with you!