I is what we never acquiesces to be. Equally, we is what I eventually is seldom happy to accept to
stay as. They ensures, lives do not ever run out of the energy of variance.
Evolution must stay
immortal; everything else has to feel incumbent upon it to burn as the fuel of cosmic conflict.
Objectivity?s encores do ensure; the symphony of the quantum of earthy relativity keeps playing
to eternalize sanity of senses.
The innate exuberance of realisms may truly be in its randomized super-positioning. Still,
objective pattern-building of energies and un-patterning of subjective sensitivities for
personalized as well as collective utilities are fruition of life and living experiences.
It seems like a mystical revelation to be in the tempest of 3Cs –
consciousness, cognition and
causality. The infinite possibilities of these three, engendering immeasurable, often
unfathomable chunks and slices of realisms, only ensure that validity of singularity of truth
remains evolutionary in time-space journeys.
Journeys need always beckon us to newer destinations of consciousness.
Still, it is bliss to be
back – back to home.
The mighty force of Beas River water, pursuant to the lusty pull of tangent slopes towards lower
plains and sensuous whispering of thick groves of woods on both sides, as if occasioning the
baser instincts to sweep away whatever comes on its way, presented this conflict to him in its
entirety and magnanimity. He knew; nature was the only true Guru as, it taught without the
slightest semblance of the preposterous pride and presumptuous purposes of teaching and
preaching. No Guru could be as brutally objective and equally overpowering as nature. That was
why he was here.
Long ago, the river, as an individual, had outscored the patient obduracy of the colossus stature
of the mountain chains of Himalayas; working single-mindedly in charting out its passage,
cutting through the majestic establishment and finally, moving ahead, stamping the signature of
its victory over them.
Mid-stream, Mayank Mishra was sitting on a rock and continuously watching a small pebble on
the riverbed, which was holding still, probably for years, challenging the collective might of the
river current. The river flow was steep, yet the depth of river water was shallow and the clarity of
water allowed clear view. The green moss woven around the pebble was sure indicator that the
pebble was steady there for years. A small fish parked itself around the pebble, wobbling at the
moss, enacting the ballet of life. He was looking at the pebble for hours.
Yesterday too, he did
the same.
When Mayank arrived at Manali; a lovely small town in the laps of Himalayas, three days back,
virtually fleeing away from the place he lived and worked, none of his friends, colleagues and
bosses had any inkling of where he was and what he had in his mind. He first headed for higher
peaks of the Himalayas, spending a whole day on top of a large chunk of rock, twelve kilometers
away from the nearest congregation of population. He tried to jerk off what had happened that
made him to run away from his city, two thousand kilometers away and take shelter in mountains
in northern parts of India.
That happened sooner than he expected as the immensity of nature, the enormity and sheer
novelty of his positioning amid the inimitable surroundings unsettled him.
He could not handle
the trepidation of nothingness and threat to mortal existentialism as he looked down at ten
thousand feet deep gorges on one side and almost perpendicular rise of thousands of feet high
mountains on the other. He rushed down and found a small dingy food stall beside the narrow
road. He ate a large serving of hot and roughly edged noodles with lots of chili sauce to pamper
his physical poise.
Half an hour later, he reached back to the top again, this time, a warm packet of Momos tucked
in his pocket as his life support mechanism. After an hour, a sheep wandered near him. A boy
with his herd was nearby. He offered a Momo to the sheep but it refused to eat and moved
towards the steep slopes leading to the deep gorge. He could not dare peep down to see where it
went. Soon, the rest of the herd followed it.
The shepherd boy came near him and sat near the Momo on the ground. He offered Momos to
the boy and asked him did he fear living in such conditions? The boy took a Momo but said
nothing. From his face, he could read that the boy had not understood the question. He felt
embarrassed to have asked such a stupid question.
He looked up to the blue sky above. It was immaculate with not even a spot of cloud. It was
mesmerizing. He kept his gaze and started to feel that he was actually rising high above and
penetrating the depth of the blue stretch, which first looked to him only like a thin sheet of
clothe. He felt his consciousness becoming light like a feather and surging above to sway past
the thickness of the blue sky to transcend into a world beyond.
Suddenly, he felt something pulled him down and he found himself crashed to the rock top,
where he was sitting moments before. The shepherd boy was pulling his hands and asking a
Momo for his little sister, probably a year younger than him. The girl was looking at him and
innocence was writ large on her face.
A strange feeling engulfed his consciousness. It was not happiness, not satisfaction, not thrill, not
affection, not compassion, nothing which he had ever felt. It felt he had landed in some
dimension, which could make him see not only the little boy and girl, but also himself from a
distance. It was like he was watching a theatre where his character was in a role-play with the
two kids. He saw, he took both the kids in his lap and made them eat Momos with his own hand.
He saw the three chatting and laughing. He wished to clap in joy but could not find his hands.
Two hours later, he was back in his hotel room and slept for hours; first time in the last one
week.
A week back, it was that fateful night and the tumultuous dawn.
The mobile phone buzz stirred him in the bed but he ignored. Half asleep, he closed his eyes in
desperation to extend the inevitable. Minutes later, the landline phone started ringing and he
could no more carry his pretentious sleep. Still in the bed, he looked beyond the windows to
ascertain the march of the morning and the faint light outside made him uneasy.
Instinctively, he moved out of his bed and dragged himself towards the door to look for the
newspaper but it was not yet delivered. He felt relieved but quickly got irritated. Another bad
start of the day, as usual, even when the dawn had not yet smiled on him and said good morning.
Life throws up a queer spectrum of desires. As you are born, everyone desires that you wake up,
open your eyes and deliver a playful smile. But as a new born, you are mostly asleep as your
blank head ensures that you do so and you do so because sleep comes natural to you. As you
approach your death, all you want is a sound sleep and its natural prerequisite, the blank and
unburdened mind. But, in between the two points, you do not sleep well and even do not want to
sleep well as your desires make you awake.
It is probably this desire of humanity that has led to the coinage of the word good morning.
People desire to attain a lot and as time is always running away, they wish to compromise on
their sleep. That is why morning becomes so important in a person?s 24-hour journey of the day.
Morning ends the „undesirable sleep? and starts the chase of desires afresh. That is why in all
civilizations, people say good morning to each other even when most people would admit that
there is nothing so good about most of their mornings. Actually, there is only a valid good night
as it invites the sleep and halts, at least temporarily, the desire chase.
Mayank Mishra was irritated. The phone calls so early in the morning had its clear signals. As he
checked the missed incoming call on his cell phone, he got doubly sure that his irritation was not
misplaced. The mobile phone screen flashed „missed call from editor? and he instantly knew
something was terribly wrong with the newspaper that hit the stands. As the News Editor,
Mayank was practically responsible for selection, placement and display of all news stories and
pictures accommodated in the newspaper he worked with.
Irritated he was, not because his morning sleep was disturbed, for he had adapted to sacrificing
his sleep for his professional commitments. He was irritated as he could not see the morning
newspapers to know if anything else went wrong, apart from what he already knew.
He expected the call from the editor and was even braced up to face his usual annoyance with
something „wrong? he had done. But a call so early in the morning made him a bit scared of
some other error which he did not know of. He knew it well that once he got wind of the mistake,
he would certainly devise his response.
The first important lesson he was taught as a journalist was how to pass the buck on others and
save his skin as committing errors in the pressure deadline business like newspaper was a routine
affair. Only later, he realized that almost in all jobs, the mastery of art was not in allowing your
creativity a free flight to produce an innovative cut. It was rather in playing safe to avoid
unproductive and wasteful cuts.
That?s why; the genius in all organized works around the world had devised production strategies
that valued safety and conformity to fixed mechanical patterns more than anything. The
standardization of production process is the established benchmark; liberty to diversion of
innovation and originality is taken with suspicion. When this mechanical virtue became part of
intellectual aptitude of art and media, he did not know.
In almost all jobs, the bosses would tell their subordinates, “In our business, the deadline is
always yesterday”. Mayank always thought, when someone is already made to be guilty of
„delayed start?, even before he commences, subsequent guilt hardly troubles anyone. It is like
humanity being guilty of the „original sin? of Adam and Eve and never being sorry for loads of
other subsequent wrongs.
He remembered, once he was interviewing the CEO of an FMCG major and had asked why
conformity rather than creativity was the preferred virtue in most established and organized work
systems. The CEO had said, “Stupidity and creativity are like twins. But, creativity is popstupidity.
If markets; the consumers accept it, a stupidity is quickly branded as creativity. But as
a CEO, I cannot take a risk as no CEO on the earth can predict which way the markets behave.
Genius can rarely be customized, it is usually accidental stupidity.”
The CEO had added on condition of not printing it, “when big time money is at stake, safety is
the only virtue for business; of course I save my creativity for times when I am with my wife or
in a seminar”.
The lesser geniuses, the larger workforce, however have since ages designed the smart excuses
for not being up to the cut. The words like optical illusion, printer?s devil, computer error, server
snag, news swap, etc are the excuses that have been designed dexterously for saving a
journalist?s skin. O f course, they don?t tell you all about these in their induction programs for
trainees. That?s why godfathers are so important in all fields of activities, especially jobs.
Mayank was anxious to lay his hands on the morning newspaper to know the error so that he
could decide on the onus and then confidently ring back the Editor. He would not be shy of
accepting his fault, if it was his but would never accept an unnecessary interference on his
innovative cuts. As he entered the kitchen to make a cup o f tea, the mobile phone buzzed again.
He made up his mind to face it and also very quickly rehearsed his reply.
He picked up the
phone.
“Hello… Mayank…. we fucked them today… bloody you rammed their asses real hard this
time… congratulations”, the editor b lurted out loud on the other side.
Mayank fumbled with his response as the praise from his editor was unexpected. The man on the
other side was least bothered about the response as he continued his joyous exclamations over
how their front page scoop about the scam in medical entrance test results went exclusive and
how their copies were sold like hot cakes in the stands.
The editor was happy not because their newspaper was going to be the talk of the town but
because he was told by the circulation department guys that some hawkers refused to lift the
copies of the rival newspaper and insisted on increased quota of their newspaper copies. A rare
joy for an editor; the sales guys heaping praise on editorial genius is like a solar eclipse…very
rare indeed!
“Nice placement, good display… brilliant judgment… you are a real bastard of a journalist …
tonight I will cheer the scotch in your name”, the editor exclaimed.
“Thanks sir, thanks … it is indeed a good day for us”, Mayank managed a reply.
“Enjoy you bastard, enjoy your day of glory under the shining Sun, there ain?t many such days in
the career of a journalist”, the editor said and signed off.
Mayank murmured something, threw himself on the bed and slept.
The pre-dawn in the city belongs to the sweepers of the municipal corporation and the newspaper
hawkers. One clears the dirt and another spreads it. Murders, rape, loot, bungling, mishaps,
death, pain, sufferings and all possible negativities are splashed all over the front page and the
important page three- four city pages with great linguistic skills.
Importantly, all troubles need to
be assigned to governance and system, never the public. Readers love to know that whatever
wrong happened to them, someone else is to be blamed, not them. Early morning pride sails
them through their tough and humbling lives.
The glory for newsmen however, is not in cramming the pages of the newspaper with negative
news and writing it in a style that would beat a blockbuster movie screenplay but, it is indeed in
doing it exclusively. The joy is not in how good you are but in how bad you made the rivals
proved out to be on a given day.
Mayank looked at the bundle of newspapers as he left his bed a few hours later but did not care
to read them. He, like most journalists, read them only when an error would be pointed out. He
recollected the morning conversation with his editor and shook his head as if he wished to throw
away the memories from his head. He however smiled. He smiled because in his ten-year career
in the newspapers as a journalist, he could never anticipate right whether he would receive praise
or punishment in the morning for what he did late night in the newsroom.
He remembered; the editor was not very convinced of this medical entrance exam result scam
story last evening when it was shown to him as he was not confident of the credibility of the
reporter. He was sure that the story would fall flat as a front page scoop because it would not be
exclusive. He doubted the source would also leak it to other media persons.
Mayank had insisted that he wished to play the story as a front page scoop and had also rewritten
the story to make it impactuous. The editor had left the office late evening making clear that the
story should ideally be covered as „also ran? story on the lower half of the front page but not as
front page scoop. Mayank had taken the challenge and as usual, he took the risk, cross-checked
with his sources and ran the story as front page top scoop with a banner display.
He expected the editor?s ire next morning but once again he was proved wrong. The story went
exclusive and that made the editor happy. But despite editor?s praise, Mayank was apprehensive
as his journalistic intuition warned him of trouble ahead. How the rival newspaper could miss
such a big story, he wondered. His apprehensions proved right as the day progressed.
By the time, the reporters gathered in the newsroom for the 12 o? clock meeting, the editor had
received many phone calls which made his morning bliss disappear. A call from the deputy
general manager of advertisement had also made him nervous. He sent a message from his
chamber to the reporters that he would not take the meeting and the chief reporter should go
ahead with it. There also was a one line instruction that no follow ups of today?s scoop will be
required.
Mayank did not react when the editor briefed him of the situation at hand and asked him to
proceed on leave. As a true journalist, he had the intuitive perception of bad things and vibes. As
he had entered the office, the body language of the guard on the ground floor, the reception girl
and his own colleagues and the calm in the newsroom had made him realize that bad news was
coming his way.
A chaotic news room is a sure sign of a satisfying morning for the readers and peace and order
there means a disaster for one or other journalist. As a news editor, he had witnessed the fall out
of a peaceful newsroom on some of his colleagues but this time around, not others but he himself
looked to be on the firing line.
He made extra efforts to look nonchalant and put up a normal voice as he asked the editor, “I
think, you should be honest to me; I can understand, after all I am in this profession and also
with you for such long years. Don?t hang me on this leave thing…. simply tell me, am I being
sacked or …. ?”
The editor was agitated and interrupted him, “…. look Mayank, I am not in a mood to entertain
your crap. I am already running out of patience. Can?t you see where we have landed ourselves!
The chief minister of the state has asked the public relation department secretary to stop all
government advertisements to us and you know what it means! Our monthly billing is one crore
and forty lakhs a month, do you listen, and we are not losing our pocket moneys but the
lifeline…! Go and sleep well. Be positive; take this opportunity to relax as leaves are so rare in a
journalist?s life. But do not leave the city, the boss is coming.”
He was about to leave when editor said, “You know, when a lightning strikes in the sky,
someone on the earth below has to lose his luck. Trust me, only the poor are ruined in rain…you
and me live in concrete houses.”
Mayank looked deep into the eyes of his editor and could not get the vibes he was expecting. He
could easily see the face of the man in the eyes of the editor who had clearly run out of luck. He
had seen many soldiers sacrificed to save the skin of the general but this time, he was the general
who was taking the innocent blood and the poor soldier was too young and a favorite with him.
“The reporter is not at fault. He just had a story and I took the decision to run it as front page top
scoop, even when you had disapproved of it. So, I should be kicked out not him”, Mayank said
sounding determined and assertive.
“Don?t try to be my dad. When I was your age, I too enjoyed being a messiah even while I knew
it quite well that none in seven generations of my family was one. Always remember, you are a
servant of a baniya (trader) and you waste your talent singing the song of universal brotherhood
in front of a butcher. Preserve these sweet sentiments for your girlfriend; she will be impressed
and suck it. May be in return of your baby talks, she will give you a yummy fuck like a well-paid
whore. Push the door when you move out”, the editor said in low murmuring voice and turning
away, pretended to look busy scanning stories of the day on the Newstrack.
The chief reporter outside was waiting for Mayank as he had got his facts ready. The rival
newspaper editor had done the trick. He too had this story about the exam result bungling as the
source had shared the leak. The rival editor however chose not to publish the story and late night,
he phoned the personal secretary of the chief minister informing that they were not going ahead
with the story. The editor however lied to the personal secretary saying that the story was
exclusive. The rival editor also had it confirmed earlier that Mayank was taking the story as front
page lead scoop. Mayank could guess who in his newsroom had leaked the piece of information
to the rival editor.
In a rather smart move, the rival newspaper had made the chief minister to believe that there was
a political conspiracy behind the scoop to embarrass him and his government ahead of the crucial
assembly by-polls and Mayank?s newspaper was playing in the hands of the opposition.
Everything is fair in love and corporate wars. It was nothing unusual.
However, unlike other
wars, it was difficult to make out who was fighting against whom and whose behalf. The
warriors were not lined up against each other as in traditional wars and loyalties were always at
premium.
Mayank smiled and remembered his hunch in the morning when he had doubted how the rival
could miss such a big story and there was something bigger than what looked like a simple miss.
He thought of going back to the editor?s room to inform him what he had just learned but quickly
decided against it. He recollected the editor?s word, „don?t try to be my dad?. He was sure he
knew more.
Next night, Mayank took a train to New Delhi for his onward journey to Manali, the
mountainous resort. He had nothing specific in mind, but was sure, he would return to his town
only when he would have made his mind of his journey of life ahead. It was long due.
**