The NEWS.

North-East-West-South…The NEWS – As in Wikipedia, News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.

Earlier it was like bringing the information of what all was happening around the globe to your living room on just the press of your TV remote. Now it’s even simpler and easily accessible. Unlike the real purposes meant to serve, the so called “NEWS” is now being the leading entertainment subject overwhelming the Cinema, Music, Sports and all other matters meant for entertainment.

Personally and frankly speaking, NEWS is one such thing that I hate the most. My colleague, who is also my roommate often speak to me in exclamation that he have never seen such a person (me) who takes less than two minutes to read the newspaper.

Though I explain my theory, he was never ever convinced. I used to argue that is it not with mind state of gathering some information they read the newspaper rather it’s like kind of reading a suspense thriller novel. Yes, it is. One will realize it when he spends a minute to just stop and think. The hot news’ are just more similar and also of less quality in subject, language and culture when compared to the stories that run through the pages of a book or a reel in the theatre.

People started accepting that they are being cheated, the way they are being cheated and also reading and enjoying that vey same way they are being cheated. The newspapers and the channels rip open all the stories, the police findings and also the various impact that follows. It’s all good, fine and healthy. But as time rolls, there emerges some strange elements like TRP, market etc...etc.

It could be this pressure, which the ‘business man’ who owns the channel or the newspaper implies on the reporters that make way for this kind of an output. For instance, one can get to understand it from a very simple example.

Cricket is a game which is almost a religion in our India. And if match is going to be played 2-3 days before the game itself, the analysis of the various experts, pitch report, players’ interview, press conference and all such stuff starts piling up in the newspapers and the channels. And if any of the players are not included, the reason behind needs to be explained; and after the match is played, then comes the match fixing scandals, misbehavior of the players, umpire’s biased decisions and all such things gains space in the breaking news scroll. One who misses to watch the match finds it really hard to plot the scorecard to know what and how the match was played from the sports area in the newspapers.

I mean, no one is even bothered about the match. Right from the beginning itself the reporters, reports, readers and viewers get into the forecast and the analysis. Let me purposefully skip a major plot, the politics and the politicians, which and who gives birth to news reports at least in every 10 seconds. We live in a sadist civilization. Here, people read the news of a gang raped girl with the ease of reading a comic book. No one cares.

I don’t have any idea of how many people can agree with me when I write this. At one or the other point of time I’m sure that all of us might have had a wave of this thought. Don’t take the news to your brains and capture your senses. It will be just justice if the news’ are given the importance they deserve.

One major benefit that I have felt that the modern day journalism has gifted the public with is a strong rock-solid heart making the public capable enough to flick a smile on his face after reading or hearing the news of any great tragedy that happened around him… unless and until it is about him…. ….

Entangled.

2011 is now a little more than a month old. Though it’s only one twelfth of its size, 2011 was capable enough to move me to Pontianak, the Equator City of Indonesia being a part of a team of two. Another two months to spare. Another two months without the wind that comes caressing the banyan leaves, without the DHUP DHUP of my bullet, without the “we are the robots” the curtain raiser song of Georgettan's Ragam movie hall, without all other happiness’s of all sizes that that 2 kilometer circled town called Thrissur releases when she opens her arms wide to welcome me.

The people here in this part of the world, were celebrating the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) holidays. Those three days holiday were some sort of an imprisonment. More than an irony it’s funny referring those days as imprisonment. For here, we have all the stylish kind of lifestyle; except the net…the web…the World Wide Web. It’s being delayed because of the holiday here.

It’s a complete isolation in this 21th century earth to live a day without the Internet. I was just wondering how the sapiens survived without the internet and the mobile phones even less than a score ago. And especially in this country, I think people might even survive even without food, water, air, clothes or shelter. But the case would have been entirely difficult for this most loving and caring civilization to live a day without Blackberry phones and Facebook. I have often felt that the younger generation of this country would be considering the discovery of the Blackberry mobiles as the third vital discovery ever happened in the history of mankind next after the discovery of fire and wheel.

Generations are now born into the web, entangling them right from the time of birth. Hmm, but these few days without the web have unleashed a good and perhaps a great revelation in me. But it can stand only as a revelation. It can’t rule me…for me too, like all others around me is entangled in this Web. Staying away is not a way to get rid of it.

But I too don’t feel like blaming me for this addiction. I also love this web, the place where everything that you think of is just a click away. That Enter key on your keyboard and the left button on your mouse represents everything known to man; everything beneath, within, above and around the sun…everything….simply everything…