One year on....
I wrote what I thought was a very angsty piece on the mockery that television channels made of the November 26 attacks, exactly one year ago. I never completed it. Surprisingly, much of this still rings true.
Long before a real education in journalism and the wisdom of the years had caught up with me, I watched with unwavering fascination as a female journalist reported from the battle lines of the Kargil War in Kashmir. The histrionics of war didn’t seem – at least to my naïve eyes – as interesting as this brave woman, who didn’t flinch even as sniper fire nearly grazed her ears. The Kargil War in 1999 was different from every other war India had fought, not only because the specter of nuclear annihilation hovered precariously over both countries, but also because the battle barged right into our living rooms. Thanks to live television, every average Joe could follow a blow-by-blow account of the battle, right as it unfolded. Watching the tanks roll and hearing the sickening staccato of artillery fire only further stoked the fierce, almost unthinking patriotism that hung in the air. India had witnessed wars before but I’m fairly certain that my parents had only visualised combat scenes in their heads, or read about them in history books. This was different: it was immediate and in your face. I, for one, was hooked to the raw power of live television. I had wanted to be a journalist for years, but it was easier to make up my mind now. I wanted to be a part of the young, microphone-wielding brigade that was changing the way television news was presented in India. I questioned that decision several times over the next few years, none the least when I found myself working for a business news channel based in Mumbai. In the vast, all-glass newsroom that was my workplace, there were few places wherein to hide. And it seemed like we, trainee producers, were constantly in the line of fire. When news broke, our backs did too. In the spiraling frenzy that followed, we typed faster than our fingers permitted to put “tickers” out. Even before we made sense of what had happened, a reporter would have reached the spot and we would have “cut” live. OB van numbers would swim before our eyes. A thousand voices would bark orders simultaneously, and there was no time to be intimidated or confused. A year on, I realised that the adrenaline rush of 24/7 television had only drained me out. I had no passion for the information I put out – I was only a “keyboard monkey”, as a former colleague put it, capable of cutting-and-pasting with alarming speed. Convinced that its immediacy was also its undoing, I ran a mile from television and into the warm embrace of the written word. I lived without TV for three years, and never missed its cackle. Until, of course, ten armed men walked in to my city and put a gun to its head. In the early hours of the siege, when every new text message brought more bad news – I hoped they were rumours but they weren’t – I was holed up in a bar in Bandra. I could only watch the horror unfold on a small television set at the bar. Even by the standards of a city that has jostled with so much tragedy in recent years as to be considered jaded and soulless, the tragic events of November 26 and the days to follow cut deep. It was hard to comprehend how this city could be outraged so easily, and so completely. Every disbelieving eye in the fast emptying bar was preened to the television set, which was spewing out violent visuals that wouldn’t have been out of place in a war zone. On the night of November 26, as indeed for the 60 hours to follow, the television set was our only way to reach out to the rest of our suffering city. In retrospect, I wonder how I willed myself to watch television during that terrible time. It is now common knowledge that faced with an unprecedented, developing crisis, Indian media channels engaged in something like a free-for-all. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone expressed it. Anchors dropped their already flimsy pretence of even-headedness and let it rip. One gentleman didn’t leave the studio to eat, shave or collect his thoughts for two days running. How coherent his running commentary was at the end of two days is anyone’s guess. There is now proof that far from reporting events on the ground with restraint and accuracy, the cavalier media circus in fact may have endangered lives. Has anything really changed one year on? Television news is just as personality-driven, and television personalities are just as shrill and opinionated.As for me, I have never regretted my decision. I may be in awe of the unparalleled power of television, but I’m happier wielding the pen for now.
