The Fourth Estate - Scaling dizzying heights of dumbness and mediocrity

The Media, or the Fourth Estate has taken up a new role nowadays : It earnestly and steadfastly tries to humor and entertain us with its so called half hour soaps called NEWS. Bored of watching the sagas of Tulsi and Kkavyanajali? Bored of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge? Need something to humor you and entertain you? Just head straight for the nearest news channel.

With so much competition and the wild frenzy for setting up news channels nowadays, press reporting has taken on an entirely new dimension. I came across a lot of instances recently where the news anchors were trying to capture my attention by uttering archaic hindi proverbs (which I am sure, came out of some Harivanshrai Bacchan book), drawing absurd and out of the world comparisons(Eg: Sachin Tendulkar and Chocolate...But I shall come to that later), inviting never- before-heard-of "Experts" to discuss Cricket, Hockey, Politics and what not and last but not the least, proudly claiming exclusivity for every minute of video that they transmit.

A few humorous instances:

1) AK's Wedding: Reporters from Channel 7 rush to the venue. Desperate to catch a glimpse of AK and wife. Woman Reporter. In the ensuing melee to somehow force entry into the venue, hustle-bustle happens. Woman Reporter angry. Claims unwarranted assault. Turns video towards herself. Cries about being victim of high-handedness by actors. Earnestly begs us to display sympathy towards her. Even grabs hold of 2 innocent passers-by. Narrates them the story. Tries to brainwash them into admitting on Live TV that AK is as inconsiderate and as inhuman a person as you can find. Soap Opera ends with Woman Reporter dishing out subtle abuses and profanities to AK for being busy marrying his wife and not attending to the reporter.

2) Sachin Tendulkar breaks record for Maximum Centuries: Channel 7 takes the cake again. Claims to be the only news channel to know of the historic achievement. Starts interviewing his childhood buddies and class teachers. Dumb looking reporter on TV starts giving a character sketch of Tendulkar. Tries to earn applause from viewer by using unimaginable similes and metaphors. Egs: Sachin Tendulkar is like Chocolate. (Even God would not comprehend what he meant). Went on to utter a few more lines in so called chaste Hindi which closely resembled the long and verbose prose answers that one writes in the exams. At one point, left with nothing to say and at a loss of words, uses his amazing extempore skills. Utters a string of "Ummm"s and "Ah"s for the next minute. Therafter, convinced that he has passed on invaluable information to viewers, signs off. News Anchor confirms the same by thanking him for such a complete coverage of such a historic achievement. At this point, realizing that they yet have to display the 100th run on TV, do so hurriedly. End of Soap Opera.

3) Man in remote village claims to have foreseen his death : News Channels literally salivating at such an exciting tidbit. Expected mad rush to remote village. Remote village grabs limelight. Reporters start the countdown. Can't wait for man to die. Interview kith and kin of About-to-die man. Ask insightful questions: How do you feel? How does he feel? How does everyone feel? A feeble attempt at questioning the authenticity of the man's claim. Having failed at that, back to other interesting questions. Moment finally arrives. All cameras trained on About-To-Die man. Moment passes. Cameras focused on Should-Have-Died man. Moment long gone by, Cameras focused on Why-hasn't-he-died-yet man. Finally, reporters come to conclusion that they must have been taken for a ride. Switch off cameras and bitch about each other for satisfaction. Task Completed. Reporters and Cameramen lug equipment and head back with a morose look back to studios. Issue quietly suppressed. Soap Opera Ends.


One can witness many such exciting incidents on news channels nowadays. With viewership ratings being the key focus, authentic and unbiased reporting of news has gone for a toss. Reporters know neither head nor tail of what they're speaking. But they know one thing: Viewership is important. And to that end, they shall strive tirelessly. As I very often remark... "Sigh" and "Alas!"


Words from the Wise: #3:

Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner.

Who am I?

I was so involved in describing the experience of my first blog that I seem to have forgotten to tell something about myself.

For all those lucky people who haven't yet had the opportunity of knowing me:

Who am I:
I am currently doing my Final Year Electronics Engineering from Vivekanand College in Chembur.


How am I:

• Some friends insist upon calling me a genius, inspite of my consistent denial of any such quality.
• Some friends think that I am very dumb, irritating and annoying.
• All my friends believe that I have a ravenous appetite. And they take extreme precaution to ensure that I am not around whenever they go to the canteen.
• Some friends think I am utterly lovable. God Bless them.
• Some friends are also under the wrong impression that I have an amazing command over English.
• ALL teachers are under the impression that taking my viva is an utter waste of their time and that I do not know anything remotely connected to academics.
• ONE teacher however steadfastly believes that I am equal to Deepan and I have mastery over Mathematics, and that it is a child's play for me.
• I generally tend to have a cynical and humorous outlook towards most things that happen around us.

What are my plans for the future:
I was a budding manager hoping to be in an IIM. But life has charted out a different path for me. Whether I take it or not shall be revealed soon.

Enough gyaan about me for today. Adios!

Words from the Wise: #2:

LAW OF TELEPHONE: When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged one.

My First Blah(g)

After much deliberation and contemplation, I finally join the Blogging Bandwagon. (Do I hear groans and sighs already??). But before going ahead with my decision, I asked a few of my friends the consequences of taking such a step. And some of them had a few interesting things to say:

Conversation 1:
TS: Oh My gaaaawwwd! Really?
Me: Uh....Uhm... Yes...
TS: Oh My god!!! Oh No!!
Me(finally realizing it was an exclamation of despair): Uh well.. everybody is doing so.. So why not me?
TS: You already torture me online so much! Now do you really have to blog too?? So that you can torture the entire world???
Me: We shall see about that. Hey can you suggest a name for my blog?
TS: Hey listen, I've gotta run. Catch ya later! Bye !

And so I decided to consult someone else.

Conversation 2:
Before I narrate my conversation with DG, I must make an important point here. When it comes to me,what DG says and what DG means are two different things. Only a skilled person can understand the fine points of distinction.

DG: Hey that is a nice idea!!
What DG meant: Wow!! Wonderful!Atleast now you shall spend more time blogging and less time annoying me!

Me: Hey Thanks! I was thinking of a suitable name for my blog. How about dontreadmyblog.blogspot.com?

DG: That is a good name. Keep it.
What DG meant: Dear God, I fervently hope that atleast for once, people take Andy seriously and refrain from reading his blog! Amen.

At this point, I must mention that Blogspot has a wierd funda as far as naming of the blogs is concerned. It supposedly has a fixed limit for the size of the name. But stubbornly refuses to proclaim so. We are supposed to figure this out for ourselves.

After spending valuable time trying out names like "dontreadmyblog", "dontreadthisblog" etc., Realization finally dawned upon me. And i went about in quest of a shorter name. Here DG selflessly helped me out. Thus, ye admirers of Andy (:P), I present before you: ignoremyblog.blogspot.com.

My first attempt at blogging - Hope to update this frequently. As it is, I have a cynical and sarcastic view about a lot of things. And this shall be my outlet for speaking out against all the dumb things that happen in the world. Some of what i say might be nothing but "Blah" and the rest might not make any sense to you. In such times of frustration, Remember: I had already warned you.

P.S: As i said before, special thanks to DG for coming up with such a "marvellous and ingenious" name!!

Fellow comrades of yore, Much to your chagrin I have now started to blog!!!

Muhahaha!

Also, quite frequently, i shall be posting a few witty sayings in my column : Words from the Wise. Keep watching out for the same.

Words from the Wise: #1:
Murphy's Law of Technology: To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

Disclaimer:

The author takes no responsibility for any parts of the conversation in specific and the post in general that might have been exaggerated or skewed out of proportion.