“Have these mouthwatering samosas. Try this tamarind chutney with it,” said my colleague with an infectious enthusiasm and large smile pasted on her face. Even before I could lay my hands on the oily stuff, others in the room had already devoured this delicacy and washed it down with cups of cold drinks.
Turning towards my host I asked, “What are you partying about today? Anything special.” And prompt cam the reply, “Haven’t you seen my byline on page one today describing tragic death of people? Everyone congratulated me for the unusual feat and I had to oblige them with a party.”
With these words she got up swayed away to another seat offering food to another colleague. I could barely manage to finish the contents in my plate and slyly put it under the table.
Once again I was brought face to face with people celebrating deaths. And I suddenly remembered behind every story there is yet another story. A story of jubilation over death. A story of partying on fatal accidents. A tale of congratulatory notes and SMSes.
Death always makes news. More tragic the incident, greater the casualties, make perfect equation for hitting page one.
Much goes on in scribe’s mind than is visible to an eye.
Mind giggles but face shows depressing thought when unusual number of causalities are reported. Fingers charmingly move at fast pace to send death reports to be published on the front page.
Tragedies have unveiled many faces that remain hidden behind masks of love, sympathy and caring.
But then I suddenly remembered that my profession is a place where one gets paid for numbness and insensitivity of mind and heart.
7 comments:
Very true.... Normally a smile is seen on the face of the journalists as soon as any death is reported. As the number increases, the smile also widens because the possibility for page ONE also increases. But in between all this such journalists tend to forget the pain and agony faced by the famlies of the deceased. They should rise above page one fixation and see the things from human angle.
Your "Numb Scribes" once again added relevance to Prem Chand's famous story 'Kafan' wherein these two men end up enjoying daru,poori and channa over the death of their kin.It is interesting how this scribe revealed her 'addressals' and yet another face.We always have choices and in this case,one could quietly light a (humble) candle also.Afterall it did provide her with a page-1 story.
It always is interesting to see our colleagues/friends wearing,un-wearing masks at times.I can't help invoking my friend Nida, Nida Fazli who wrote,
har aadmi mein hote hain
dus bees aadmi.
jab bhi dekhna,bar bar dekhna
Go on Megha doing,writing because you believe in the sanctity of the word and the action.
ps.
write sometime about the party YOU gave or could not.
Well many of us do celebrate our success out of such tragic incidents but covering such a spot with the death toll so high or something like riots is trauma for the correspondent itself. I still remember the suicide spot that I had to cover at the railway station where the body was cut to two pieces I was not able to write so with time we become stronger to hold our emotions in such crisis situation when everyone around us is in tears we are fishing out for stories...very true megha but we must try to keep the humanity in us alive
Inderdeep Thapar writes
Ability to read yourself is the biggest gift of God, to see how genuine we are, Buddha's introspection. Thank God we analyse, for without it we would really be numbed.
Regards,
Inderdeep
Hypocrite is one thing that has come to stay in every profession and most humans too. Here too under Numb scribes I smell the same. I remember a casual remark once made to a specific cast who were out to celebrate Easter. Right from the office of my own window a comment called Chude (schehdule caste) was thrown at these people. The scribes including me have actually gone numb well that is a small word, we are dead.
Jaswinder Paul SIngh says
hi Megha,
read ur blog 'numb scribes'. i hv never thought abt journalist from that angle. its true that accidents, deaths or other tragedies affect different people differently. for journalists it is just a piece of news, which gives them bylines, but nobody ever thinks abt pain suffered by people involved in tragedies or their relatives.
well written
Post a Comment