Another year has gone by. In effect, it means there is 'minus' of 365 days from one's account of life. Human being has always been a sufferer of not having adequate time. But none can control it either. No one can stop it, no one can make it pass bit faster. Time just not decides things for you - it plays omnipotent.
But memories do play a different game. When it comes to para-phrasing 'time' vis-s-vis a memory game - it can be possibly rearranged and even stretched or shrunk as the requirement may be. The calendar year 2016 had many ups and downs, many interesting tales to remember fondly and some old episodes to be perhaps forgotten easily.
Journalism remains a vocation - notwithstanding the industrialization of the same - as one of few professions still bordering with human emotions - albeit often considered redundant and foolish. Writers are the original custodians of memories. Journalists are only those involved in reportage.
The blogs are somewhat like readable memoir mostly revealing links between fiction, art, part realism and one's attempted autobiography. In these blogs, I have time and again tried to define and redefine journalism - often betraying my frustration. Moving around from organisation to organisation and largely confining my works with the print-medium - a dying art by its own standards today. - In contemporary setting journalism is often transformed into a world of 'personally intelligent people' but 'collectively stupid'.
Thus - WHIISPERING GALLERIES seem to rule the roost. Our reportage has been generally confined to 'he said - she said' stratagem -- once a sign of 'limitation' of news agency journalism and now a virtual bible for taking the "right quotes". Hence journalists with average memory and below average intellect no longer compete with stenographers - they readily play safe to recorder modes in their mobile handsets. Worse the lazy pigs happily switch on to Youtube video channels.
So- while the quotes may be correct - understanding of a statement or forceful interpretation is hardly visible.
Journalism has been also reduced to 'pro-and-anti manoeuvre'. In the process, either a journalist is Modi-bhakt or pappu-admirer or a news organisation is pro-BJP or pro-ultra left liberals. Hence - either there is blatant support to Modi's demonetisation drive or radical support to 'hate India campaigns' in the university campus. Overall - you are far from the truth but the temptation is extreme. The 'whispering galleries' of our history may in effect tend to justify all these lies into truth.
In the process, we have columnists hailing Rahul Gandhi --- coming out of his mother's control - in a year when Congress lost power in Assam, Kerala and saw desertion of party leaders in smaller states like Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh. The mainstream media seldom has shown the courage to pin point that playing second fiddle to a maverick leader like Mamata Banerjee - was a mistaken strategy for Congress Vice President. The year 2016 for Rahul Gandhi was also a momentous one - when he tried to reach out to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi - but was granted only a five minutes audience. BJP's Shrikant Sharma has made the paradox sound more bitter but direct: "The probe on AgustaWestland chopper has now reached his doorsteps".
In regional journalism - things are getting more open. Kolkata journalists reportedly travel to Delhi more frequently these days and their trip is being linked/related to Didi's prime ministerial ambition? Does it not merit more discussions? To old patrons of by blogs - it may not be news any longer that Mamata Banerjee has even displayed magical influence on journalists asking them to sing carols in press conferences at Banga Bhavan in Delhi.
It is no longer a wiseman's duty to pin point that for English journalism - hate Moditva is more than a fashion statement. The irony is the malady has largely shifted to Hindi and regional journalism too! They also feel it is always a safe and 'intelligent' bet to lampoon at the Modi regime. Now, come of it - the bigger irony is --- those who 'hate and curse' BJP-RSS -- seem to be getting rewarded by Modi-led dispensation! What's the secret behind such operations?
One can only guess foolishly.
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