One thing can be assured of the developments taking place in the national podium over last few weeks when the fourth estate has been a regular participant with its fervent orchestra at most of the times and when in one occasion with its expectable silence it turned on the locomotive gears of the fifth estate (read blogosphere and unorganized addas both in the virtual and real space ) to drive it to a new found experience of ‘being second to none’ at least in a issue of national presence but sadly of no national importance, that WE THE PEOPLE are having ways to escape from our boring mundane life if previously haven’t been walking anywhere near to our path of redemption.
Starting with the unpredictable juggernaut aka CWG, we have been speeding along in a METRO railway having occasional stoppages with euphoric occasions like a Sachin’s double, late discovery by THE EVER OPENED EYE of a substance called VVS, historic achievement with the tour of a statesman whose each uttered word reflected understanding of thousands of years and dusts of a spiritual avenue that was once India and inflicted a sense of déjà vu to many a mesmerized listener.
YES! INDIA HAS EMERGED! But then have we recognized the abyss from where we are in process of emerging? Or what do we really understand of our feeling that makes us feel that we have emerged or in the process of doing so? A question I will attend towards the end of this piece.
Coming back to our safari in the speeding metro to help us with more luminosity about our emergence, arrived as a blessing of the almighty for the longer duration called life and as a curse towards revelation of true colors of each one us to our own eyes, a series of disclosure and lies in terms of ‘A SPECTRUM JACKPOT’, ‘HOMES THAT FAILED VASTU SHASTRA’ or ‘PIECES OF PLOT OF LANDS THAT IN THE LONG RUN WILL BE LESSER THAN WHAT THE COFFIN REQUIRES!’ Or ‘THE HOLLOW BANKS NOT HOLLOW ENOUGH TO PRESERVE A DINOSAUR MUMMY’ and finally ‘THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH THAT ASSUMES DIFFERENT DHARMA ONCE THE CURTAINS ARE DRAWN.’
However amidst all this flashing images, I haven’t failed to notice that THE KID WRITING ON THE WALL IS STILL IN HIS WAY TO SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION AS I EVER THOUGHT HE WAS. I have enough reasons to love the ‘191’ and remind myself that I have done my part of seeking avenues, now I need to walk in them. In the meantime it can be seen as a triumph for the nation as the HOLY GRAIL earlier kept concealed BELOW THE SEVENTH PATAL when brought to light started no COSMIC COMBAT between the SONIC waves of AZAN and the CRESCENDOS OF THE REVERBERATING MANTRAS OF AGES EVER MORTAL.
Now where do we stand? The country! We the people as a whole! We had already reached a state of infidelity with the various pillars of a democratic society namely, the political fraternity, the corporate, the bureaucrats, the heath sector, paralyzed investigative agencies, the legal frontrunners, activist wearing mask of social injustice or human right concerns and most importantly the people howling vehemently for freedom of their own speech and for the voice of their sorority that want all the rivers in the world to flow only in one direction. The direction the campaigners of NOT SO FREE PRESS find accommodating towards reaching their own destination.
The fourth estate in indeed shaken as we can hear the sound of the dusts falling from its walls and architecture to the ground and refusing to settle there. But that is not just because much maligned RADIA tapes are out. Only the ignorant and naïve would consider the RADIA tapes to have declare the doomsday for the 4th estate or have started the much feared decadence dance amongst the individual citizen of the country to jazz to the tunes of lost faith in the whole of the system. You don’t need facts and proofs to loose faith. Faith is an extremely intricate thing to protect just as true unconditional love and respect are naturally rare emotions to garner in a complex urban society where cynicism is natural inhabitant of the moral jungle where the spiritually void people lay peripatetic. Just as truth can decrypt the quagmire of lies to evolve endlessly but with its original quintessence, the uncompromising integrity doesn’t get dissolved in the acid rain of allegations and counter allegations merely because they are raised. How many across the whole world (not only India!) do really believe that Sachin Tendulkar actually tempering the ball when caught on the tape? Or even with the RADIA tapes, do all the people involved generated equally sound incredibility? Or was it the doomsday for only a selected few? Interestingly the least dangerous villain to emerge from the RADIA tapes is herself along with unknown few. She was doing her job as the others did least, which is and will be the immediate understanding the naked eye will relay for the brain to store as well-deciphered mantra.
And we never knew of a SAINT that is NIRA RADIA. But we knew few others who have trying over the years to pose as ones. Although we were long before convinced of their double standards, we never had anything significant to trounce AGENTS OF SATANS IN PURDAH HIDING BEHIND THE MURKINESS. The reasons are quite simple. The learned of the society can be deceived or be made to behave as such but not the ones with wisdom developed with the pure eye. Secondly, the relentless competition is ever divulging various editions of a single event through various channels and mediums of the 4th estate and at times the leaning and nepotism of the eminent faces towards a particular centre of power becomes very obvious from the collective knowledge of all events of recent timelines. What is more damaging then the hidden favoritism is the exploitation of facts and logics these faces resort to towards arriving at their unholy homes with biased hypothesis. And with their eminence and intellect they do it successfully also as the steering wheel remains in their control. This attracts hatred as well as jealousy from the people at large while at the same time there are existences that remain uncompromised in one issue or another. And they too are broadcasting. At this current age and date, it is not tough for people to distinguish or at least discover silently the moves of the ball game the media is playing. And don’t forget the contribution of the blogosphere.
Hence much before the release of the RADIA tapes we were already introduced to the intellectual villains of the estates. And when records all across the internet reveal the like ones of Chetanya Kunte who were asked to limit their freedoms of speech by the ones who on record and display shout aloud for freedom of speech, credibility doesn’t wait to get married again once divorced for dismal gains. Ernest Hemmingway famously said ‘A man can be destroyed; but never defeated.’ Our extrapolation says truth can be delayed but never altered. But with the appalling efforts we see in everyday journalism these days probably a man does neither got destroyed nor defeated but no wonder people’s faith has suffered a whitewashing defeat. With Radia tapes nothing new is established but many of us find in home in declaring the INSTANT VILLAINS.
And that’s where we need to do introspection. Villains are not Human; they are Human instincts pulled by ravenousness for material identity, possession and besmirched by revulsion and favoritism. So setting personalized vendetta against the likes of Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi, Prabhu Chawlas is never going to earn us the Moksha we are collectively in need of. But the blogosphere is precisely doing that. And not only the immature naïve comments the twitterati, the blogs or the social networking sites demonstrating, but the intellectually mature and sound writing from some quarters also rehearsing the same while beneath all those cerebral analysis lies efforts driven by odium and voyeurism. It is very important to understand that if this prevalence and such other occurrences help us in getting the nascent form of ethical journalism that remains spiritually correct to its goals and means or our collective effort can do well to achieve the same, then we can sooner reach the destiny of this transparent institution free from personalized architecture of a few, where ideas can conglomerate for higher needs of the world and its problems at large. As per the wrongdoing goes, there is no legal system in the world that can or should punish these slandered journalists. And there is no reason to loathe their art of writing a piece with intertwined logic or anchoring a program with confluence of thoughts from various quarters that can provoke our art of thinking in issues relating to diverse social and political orientation and situation if we are to believe in an intellectually evolving nation constantly accompanied by uncensored expression of the 5th estate. But in the meantime, it is vital that we renounce the lies the various constituent of the fourth estate tends to diffuse into our mental space through a quandary of infinite resonance of facts, information and curtailed logic and analysis where truth is shown to be manufactured. If we can do so we won’t have our Barkha Dutts, Vir Sanghvis and Prabhu Chawlas and neither will we have the need of vindicating their facades as with the spiritually hollow efforts like Barkhagate etc. we do.
