Saturday, June 13, 2009
Reflections - Part II
This is one of my favourite stories about journalism and ethics. Here it goes:
Rai is a middle-aged photojournalist in Salman Rushdie’s fictional work The Ground Beneath Her Feet who is still waiting for his big break. One day he gets a chance to break a major story on corruption by a leading political party. Everything depends on getting the right pictures that tell the story. But to take the pictures he will have to go into the heartland of the country, into the dangerous lairs of the politician and his goons.
In those days photojournalists covering dangerous stories would get special heels fitted into their shoes in which they could hide rolls of films with photos they have shot. This way, even if they are caught and their camera broken or rolls taken away, their photographs still get saved. But before Rai can get his pictures that will make him famous, he gets captured by the politician's cronies and they lock him up in a room with the dead body of another photojournalist hanging from the ceiling, who was there before Rai.
After spending many nightmarish days there waiting for his death, Rai finally manages to escape, but not before he has crawled underneath the flee-infested dead body, retching and throwing up, opened the heels of the dead photographer’s shoes and taken his film rolls. The next day the photographs taken by the dead photojournalist are plastered over the front pages of every leading newspaper. And Rai becomes the most sought-after photojournalist.
In summary, Rushdie says, a photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second, or one sixteenth.
Thus goes the question of journalism and ethics. Are ethics absolute? Or do they vary depending on where one stands? Can a journalist be 'unethical' for greater public good or public interest? These are some questions probably few can answer with conviction.
Rai is a middle-aged photojournalist in Salman Rushdie’s fictional work The Ground Beneath Her Feet who is still waiting for his big break. One day he gets a chance to break a major story on corruption by a leading political party. Everything depends on getting the right pictures that tell the story. But to take the pictures he will have to go into the heartland of the country, into the dangerous lairs of the politician and his goons.
In those days photojournalists covering dangerous stories would get special heels fitted into their shoes in which they could hide rolls of films with photos they have shot. This way, even if they are caught and their camera broken or rolls taken away, their photographs still get saved. But before Rai can get his pictures that will make him famous, he gets captured by the politician's cronies and they lock him up in a room with the dead body of another photojournalist hanging from the ceiling, who was there before Rai.
After spending many nightmarish days there waiting for his death, Rai finally manages to escape, but not before he has crawled underneath the flee-infested dead body, retching and throwing up, opened the heels of the dead photographer’s shoes and taken his film rolls. The next day the photographs taken by the dead photojournalist are plastered over the front pages of every leading newspaper. And Rai becomes the most sought-after photojournalist.
In summary, Rushdie says, a photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second, or one sixteenth.
Thus goes the question of journalism and ethics. Are ethics absolute? Or do they vary depending on where one stands? Can a journalist be 'unethical' for greater public good or public interest? These are some questions probably few can answer with conviction.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Fitness Freaks it is called
Freaks, it said, and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
It’s a bad day again. I’m on the 2nd treadmill and I am flanked by Gangly Boy on my left and Ape Man on my right. At least Gangly boy is dedicated to his workout. If I had his body, I too would be hitting a gym anywhere within a mile from me, with a wild rage. He must be filled with rancour at Mother Nature for what she has done to him. This bag of bones with his long gangly legs, going here and there on the treadmill, is a sight few can forget. Presently, he is running on the treadmill, throwing his legs in the air with happy abandon. I wonder if he wants to take them back home today. I am also scared that with the mad throwing around of his legs, he will disintegrate suddenly...scatter himself without a warning, leaving us covered with debris and dust. With silent prayers for his bones (I meant soul), I keep walking with a sideglance.
On the right is Ape Man. His primitive face is an adventure holidayer’s delight. The tall brown mountains of his cheek bones suddenly plunge into deep dark valleys under his eyes without a word of warning. The cheek area is rocky, uneven terrain, cracked with assorted zits, moles and holes. If your favourite sightseeing spot is the gorge, then look at his mouth with its perpetually open O (now you know where the term, ‘He gorged down his food’, came from?). Just when you thought he was all steep climbs, falls and holes, he presents the rest of his body. Tight elastic clothing stretched across unappetising beefcakes and a fluffy abdomen on its way to becoming six packs. Someday that is.
Ape Man believes he’s god’s gift to women. He can’t keep his eyes from running a full-body scan of every female form around. As his programmed scan runs over me, through the mirror between our treadmills, I shoot daggers at him. He has mistaken them for my intense look, and he runs a second detailed scan on me, pausing ten seconds each on certain parts of my anatomy. I stare angrily at my feet walking on their own.
I am not being sexist here, but the women at Fitness Freaks are by far normal. Except Lady Bug. She is a spectacle. She has thin legs, non-existent backside, thinner waist but a gigantic upper body – head included. I was told she used to exercise her upper body with such dedication and zeal that it became strong, manly and muscular whereas the lower body stayed where it was, unattended. I keep the lesson in mind.
Finally some respite. Mr. Grunge has walked in. I decide to make eyes at him. There are two of them. Grunge No 1 and No 2. The problem is both look so similar that it’s difficult to tell. Both are alpha males, tall, fashionable, stubbled, perfumed and somewhat hot. They are somewhat hot in comparison to the other visual assaults. The theory of relativity has been discovered in time.
At the water cooler, I venture to exchange pleasantries with Mr. Grunge (number not known). He sings out in a tender, delicate voice of a woman. With tiny manicured hands he grabs his plastic cup of water as if I was a potential threat. I recoil. Whoever said appearances were deceptive would have surely run into Mr. Grunge (number not known) at the water cooler.
Dejected, I do my stretches looking with amazement at Lady Bug still flexing her upper body with the greatest devotion. Ape Man is striding towards us with a sly smile. He puffs up his chest (he needs a full coverage bra, size 34-C). Unable to contain his moobs (male-boobs for the fashionable), the top two buttons of his tee give up. Bushes, freshly sweated, sprout out eagerly, vying for attention. I don’t look any further, or any lower. Who knows after Mr Grunge’s singing voice, and Ape Man's valleys and bushes, his flower will greet me. Then I will have to change his name to Rape Man. I am horror-struck at the thought.
I might be disappointed but all’s not lost. Maybe I'll nab Grunge no 2 at the water-cooler tomorrow. Better still, I should try the one across the road called 'Barbarian'.
It’s a bad day again. I’m on the 2nd treadmill and I am flanked by Gangly Boy on my left and Ape Man on my right. At least Gangly boy is dedicated to his workout. If I had his body, I too would be hitting a gym anywhere within a mile from me, with a wild rage. He must be filled with rancour at Mother Nature for what she has done to him. This bag of bones with his long gangly legs, going here and there on the treadmill, is a sight few can forget. Presently, he is running on the treadmill, throwing his legs in the air with happy abandon. I wonder if he wants to take them back home today. I am also scared that with the mad throwing around of his legs, he will disintegrate suddenly...scatter himself without a warning, leaving us covered with debris and dust. With silent prayers for his bones (I meant soul), I keep walking with a sideglance.
On the right is Ape Man. His primitive face is an adventure holidayer’s delight. The tall brown mountains of his cheek bones suddenly plunge into deep dark valleys under his eyes without a word of warning. The cheek area is rocky, uneven terrain, cracked with assorted zits, moles and holes. If your favourite sightseeing spot is the gorge, then look at his mouth with its perpetually open O (now you know where the term, ‘He gorged down his food’, came from?). Just when you thought he was all steep climbs, falls and holes, he presents the rest of his body. Tight elastic clothing stretched across unappetising beefcakes and a fluffy abdomen on its way to becoming six packs. Someday that is.
Ape Man believes he’s god’s gift to women. He can’t keep his eyes from running a full-body scan of every female form around. As his programmed scan runs over me, through the mirror between our treadmills, I shoot daggers at him. He has mistaken them for my intense look, and he runs a second detailed scan on me, pausing ten seconds each on certain parts of my anatomy. I stare angrily at my feet walking on their own.
I am not being sexist here, but the women at Fitness Freaks are by far normal. Except Lady Bug. She is a spectacle. She has thin legs, non-existent backside, thinner waist but a gigantic upper body – head included. I was told she used to exercise her upper body with such dedication and zeal that it became strong, manly and muscular whereas the lower body stayed where it was, unattended. I keep the lesson in mind.
Finally some respite. Mr. Grunge has walked in. I decide to make eyes at him. There are two of them. Grunge No 1 and No 2. The problem is both look so similar that it’s difficult to tell. Both are alpha males, tall, fashionable, stubbled, perfumed and somewhat hot. They are somewhat hot in comparison to the other visual assaults. The theory of relativity has been discovered in time.
At the water cooler, I venture to exchange pleasantries with Mr. Grunge (number not known). He sings out in a tender, delicate voice of a woman. With tiny manicured hands he grabs his plastic cup of water as if I was a potential threat. I recoil. Whoever said appearances were deceptive would have surely run into Mr. Grunge (number not known) at the water cooler.
Dejected, I do my stretches looking with amazement at Lady Bug still flexing her upper body with the greatest devotion. Ape Man is striding towards us with a sly smile. He puffs up his chest (he needs a full coverage bra, size 34-C). Unable to contain his moobs (male-boobs for the fashionable), the top two buttons of his tee give up. Bushes, freshly sweated, sprout out eagerly, vying for attention. I don’t look any further, or any lower. Who knows after Mr Grunge’s singing voice, and Ape Man's valleys and bushes, his flower will greet me. Then I will have to change his name to Rape Man. I am horror-struck at the thought.
I might be disappointed but all’s not lost. Maybe I'll nab Grunge no 2 at the water-cooler tomorrow. Better still, I should try the one across the road called 'Barbarian'.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Watch This Space
Rose said she was shocked that most of us, gen-X, gen-Y people should resist the implications of technology. We argued all too strongly we weren't resisting - we were just a careful, cautious, pragmatic group of people who didn't rent billboards to scream 'the newspaper is dead, long live the newspaper'. What if we were old-fashioned and fantasised a world where people loved hard bound books and took a lungful of newspaper breath with the morning cup of tea? It's our version of petrol sniffing! And uncontrolled, unrestrained information flow in a virtual space with pseudonym-ed characters is as good or as bad as controlled, regulated information flow. The chance of 'spin' rendering information dangerous for innocent consumption is as great or as little as in the case of traditional media. Are we being hasty then, garlanding content-aggregators as heroes and content-moderators as villains? Shouldn't we just wait and watch the free-information world come together beautifully or see it fall apart as if it were our ultimate dystopia?
Maybe I am sceptical. That's why the delay in getting a blog. For years, the best friend in India and I assured each other -
"we don't blog because we write."
We had other ready excuses for people,
"there is nothing to say,"
"we are private people, we don't care to tell the world all about our morning breakfast or share our butter chicken recipe with the bald guy in Helsinki."
Now due to a professional/educational requirement, I had to bite the bullet. But I'll continue to resist all things twitter...ill fight twooth and nail if someone tries to tweet me down to 140 characters.
It's your turn now best friend!
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