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Showing posts from October, 2015

The Writer as Conscience Keeper

Art without purpose is nothing but debauchery. Every piece of good literature should serve one of the two purpose- soothe the senses, clarify the social questions. As of now, in India, we consider writer returning the awards to a government which they do not like as a sign of something of an act of bravery. The fact remains that anything can only be returned to the one who has given it in the first place, the Akademy was constituted as autonomous body, probably has missed out the notice of eminent writers. Also if intent was to embarrass a government, they also missed out on the right target, which should be the government which failed in protecting the citizen, the government which holds law and order responsibility.  But then author as conscience keeper of the society is misuse of the authority a writer has over words. Since I,as a writer, have a right over print space, I declare that I am an enlightened being, more sensitive, more rebellious than ordinary mortals.  Writing

Holy Cow!! Indian Media and the Reporting of Riots

A man walks into metro station, shoot himself. The story is a footnote on some inside pages of the newspaper. Even if someone reads it, it is security lapse which stands out. The dead doesn’t evoke attention, let alone sympathy. Without personalization, it is a lame news. I am not a journalist. I am not even a student of journalism in proper sense. If I go by the wise words by Anne Lamott , and analyze the reports, the intent and interest of the journalist stands open for scrutiny. A murder in Dadri, sad as it is, outcome of rumor or fact, is reported way differently from the way, the gory murder of a reporter in same state or killing of a soldier in same state is reported. Annie Lamott tells us that we need to be presented with the actors in a story with human perspective, that what they were as human beings, beyond a statistics or a name. We know the man murdered in Dadri was doing errands for the village, a soft-spoken man, who, with hard work did well to place his kids in