SANITY BAG

In a series slugged ‘Sanity Bag’, I am posting portions from Anees Salim’s ‘Vanity Bagh’ as I progress reading the novel. I know my exercise of reproducing passages is not as exciting as the book itself. I read slow and in fits and starts.


Post 1:

We called ourselves ‘5 ½ Men’, though there were a whole six of us. But everything in the mohalla has a strange name, and a strange story. The imam of Masjid-e-Mosavi once said our area had been named after the wife of the British engineer who built the bridge across the Moosa River a century ago. But did a lady named Vanity ever exist on planet earth? I seriously doubt the authenticity of this story even though the imam in question happens to be my own father.

***** ***** *****
The day the City Chronicle renewed the legend of Franklin in its Sunday edition—sometimes these newspapers have so much free space they write about any crap, even about garbage disposal and eunuchs—we started hating the tree. What was a tree that reeked of Christianity doing in a Muslim neighbourhood? People started talking about felling it; they were furious that it was planted by a Christian who must have bribed a few dozen Muslims into kafirs. Probably the Pintos had been practicing Muslims a century ago; the mohalla-wallahs were almost sure that Moses, the senior-most member of the Pinto clan, had been called Moosa before his conversion. His wife was still called Fatima, whom the mohalla-wallahs now suspected of secretly fasting during Ramzan.

Anees is a fabulous storyteller, who can’t stop telling us stories. Unlike some writers who write ‘epoch-making’ books once in a blue moon and veers away into an ‘intellectual exercise’ of changing the society and healing the many ills of the generation through protest and silence, Anees keeps telling us stories of simple men in their simpler neighbourhoods. Anees sees the unseen and hears the unheard—the imam breaks wind during a serious discussion about where to bury a child in an Islamic way, and Imran gets ‘the same sulphuric smell that pervaded our house’. Anees presents grave situations with laced with dark, subtle humour, making us laugh till we remember the sores of our life—much like his protagonist in Vanity Bagh, Imran Jabbari, says: Leaning against a pillar, we laughed until we remembered we were convicts.

Kerala Writes Back

 

Kerala writers in English are talented enough to influence the shape and future of Indian writing in English

 

To use English better than the Queen's own people has always been an Indian desire. It is the empire striking back--writing back, to be literally precise.

And, the role of writers from Kerala in the process of mastering the coloniser's language and using it better than the natives is not any less significant.

When Arundhati Roy won the Booker in 1997, she had not only brought accolades to India but broke new ground in English diction. She had the spleen to use Malayalam words and expressions boldly, and believed that English is a bastard language and why not Malayalam words in it. No one said anything, and Arundhati walked away with the Booker.

Kerala is not strange to high-brow literature. We have world-class writers of our own in Vaikkom Muhammed Bashir, MT Vasudevan Nair, ONV Kuruppu, Kamala Das, K Satchidanandan, etc., and Keralites are not strangers to international masterpieces either. Perhaps we are more familiar with Latin American writers than the readers in their own countries. The leading publishers in the state will testify to the swelling market for translation of both fiction and non-fiction, which means Malayalees read world literature.

If we have a crop of Malayalam writers who could walk into any literary parlour with their head held high, we also have a bunch of writers who are talented enough to influence the shape and future of Indian writing in English.

Indo-Anglian writing, which is Indian writing in English, itself has gone through a makeover phase. The public-school trained minds and outlooks and the top-to-down stiff-upper-lip perspectives have given way to an aam admi bottom-upward perspective.

The tales of the Oxford-returnees and Cambridge-comebacks, their drawing room skirmishes with daft maids and stupid burglars have been replaced with stories of sweat, dust and fret of Indian life. 

In the beginning, Indian writing in English was kept at bay by regional writers for being ‘away from the soil’. Vernacular writers across the country were not much impressed with the themes as they found it disconnected from the reality of life in India. Even though there was a whiff of truth in it, the regional writers were being too parochial in their thinking and outlook. One of the reasons for the vernacular writers getting cynical about the Indian writers in English was the wider acceptance and reach they enjoyed.

Indian writing in English came to its own commercially by early 90s, even though we have always had quality writers like RK Narayanan whose prose and characters carried the rural air and village life. But it was after ‘super agent’ David Godwin flew down to Delhi with a much-chronicled advance cheque to Arundhati Roy for her scintillating The God of Small Things that a treasure trove was opened for Indian writing in English.

But much before Arundhati happened and turned India and Indian writing into a commercial haven, Kamala Das or Malayalees’ Madhavikutty, created a flutter with her powerful poetry and candid writing—shaking up the sensibilities of the conservative mind but warming the hearts of poetry lovers in India and abroad. She was the first Malayalee writer in English to have caught the imagination of international audience and critics. Even though Arundhati has won the Booker, she was more of a cerebral writer than of a writer who would tug at readers’ heart, like Kamala Das did. Arundhati appealed to the brain—even in the sensational The God of Small Things. But Kamala Das was the quintessential poet of the heart—the one who wrote about the gnashes and bruises in the heart.

Among Malayalee poets in English, CP Surendran and Jeet Thayil made their mark with distinct voice and emotional appeal before they both got into writing fiction. Surendran, son of Malayalam writer Pavanan, and Jeet, son of veteran journalist TJS George, have been impressive with their prose ventures. Surendran, a senior editor with The Times of India, has written two novels and, according to the grapevine, has finished the first draft of his third book. Jeet has just published his latest novel, Nacropolis, and is going places. Both writers have evolved from expressing poetic brilliance into mature writers of prose, able to negotiate the challenges of building a beginning, middle and an end.

However, we have Prof. K Satchidanadan or Satchida or Satchi mash, standing tall like a lone beacon—for years married to poetry and still romancing it! He has been the face of Indian poetry abroad, having translated many vernacular writers and himself. Satchidanandan, who believes that no moment in life is unpoetic, has been a relentless advocate of poetry of all type and form. Satchidanandan has travelled wide, reading and meeting writers from various cultures and forms of literary expression. His contribution to the culture of Indo-Anglian writing cannot be ignored even while we bask in the alpine glow of sunshine prose.

There are over 20 Malayalee writers in English who have been published to international acclaim. But only a handful of them have their works set in Kerala, which again points to the fact that Malayalees are a global presence, and when they give expressions to their creative urge, they reflect an array of cultures, details of the immediate surroundings of their life and their experiences.

Unlike writers in English from other states who live elsewhere in the country and choose to write about their own state and villages, most of Malyayalee writers tend to write with more cosmopolitan outlook.

“You write to appropriate part of your landscape you know to yourself. Most of Indian writers living abroad have set their novels, stories in India. Actually it depends on what moves you strongly that you feel the need to write,” says Binoo K John, author of The Last Song of Savio De Souza, set in his home town Thiruvananthapuram.

“My novel was set in Kerala because all the ingredients were from there. It is totally rooted there. I don’t think there is anything wrong in having a cosmopolitan setting. Nor is a Kerala writer obliged to set his story in his home state. In terms of values Kerala as a whole has a lot of cosmopolitan values. Kerala is modern in many ways,” adds John.

However, barring novels like The God of Small Things, The Last Song of Savio De Souza, Jaisree Mishra’s Ancient Promises, CP Surendran’s Iron Harvest, which talks about the Naxal era in Kerala, and Anita Nair’s Mistress, not many novels by Kerala writers delve deep into the life and the socio-political changes in the state. Of course, there are mentions and episodes in many of their works.

Most ‘expatriate’ writers tend to write about their home because they have a sense of loss. But surprisingly, majority of Kerala writers don’t seem to be writing out of any such overriding emotion.

For example, Shashi Tharoor. “I have not been a typical expatriate to write about a sort of severance from home that he or she has lost. Kerala has always been accessible to me and right from my UN days I have been coming home quite frequently. So I didn’t have a sense of loss or desperation to recapture something when I think about Kerala,” says Tharoor. “Having said that, my Indian identity has mattered more than my Kerala identity. My own life and experience have been more of a pan-Indian one. Though as a writer my vision is a national one,” he adds.

However, Manu Joseph, who made a sensational debut last year with his award-winning Serious Men, feels that Kerala is a great setting for a novel.

“It has complicated characters, literary alcoholics, feminists who make cutting remarks, daughters-in-law who write brilliant poetry about mothers-in-law, generally a population that has an opinion about everybody around it,” he says. “All these are very good for a novel. Also, Kerala is physically beautiful, which helps the setting.”

He also feels that Malayalee writers in English who live in Kerala are at a disadvantage. “I think there are a lot of good novelists who are setting their novels in Kerala but they are not getting published because they live far away from Delhi, which is where unfortunately Indian publishing is headquartered.”

Joseph, editor of Open magazine, adds: “My forthcoming novel, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, is about a Malayalee family. But it is only partly set in Kerala—mostly in Madras.

Whether they write about Kerala or not, the contributions of Kerala writers to Indian writing in English cannot be ignored. They have been brave enough to experiment and break new ground.

The God of Small Things took a dig at many of our pet peeves, breaking many of our conventions and convictions. Arundhati garnished her English diction with many Malayalam words and slangs. And, it gave Jaisree Mishra the confidence to use words like “Kodimaram” in her promising debut Ancient Promises, a story set both in Delhi and Kerala.

Arundhati is yet to come out with another fiction while she has been quite expressive of their intellectual urges through her polemics. Jaisree has taken up popular fiction and been quite prolific in terms of quantity.

Tharoor has also been a prolific and high-profile writer, thanks to his global exposure by virtue of his stint at the UN. Though there are references to life in Kerala in many of his books, the overall tint of his writing is pan-Indian. He has largely been writing about India for an international audience, for whom his face is more identifiable as an Indian than most others. Even though he has not written fiction of late, he is toying with the idea of coming back to fiction.

Manu Joseph has gone places with his debut novel, and won prizes here and abroad. His new novel, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, is well under way, and it talks about life in Madras and, again, about common men.

Kochi-based Anees Salim, who will be making his debut this year, already has three books bought by HarperCollins (two) and Amaryllis. This reporter has been privileged to read his manuscripts and can vouch that he is a terrific writer who can lead the Malayalee writers in their experiments in form and matter.

Mridula Koshy, following her collection of short-stories, If It Is Sweet, has written her first novel, The Same Road, due this month. Anjali Joseph, following her award-winning first novel Saraswati Park, has written her second, Another Country.

From satire to chick-lit to popular fiction to high-quality literary fiction, Kerala writers present a wide range of genres, contributing richly to Indian writing in English. They maybe living in different corners of the globe, and may not even have a strong pull towards the place of their biological origin, but if we make a list of Malyalee writers in English, they are all under the tag of God’s Own Country.

No matter what genre the Kerala writers write in English, especially the newcomers, they keep their ears on the ground, and do not fail to pick the pulse of life. As Manu Joseph says, “We are all regional writers who write in English.”

It is time to take notice, for Kerala, like the empire, is writing back!

 

(Published in Vibrant Keralam, June 2012)

Has television gone to the dogs?

Media is creating a ‘subversive subculture’ in all of us, and the danger is, we don’t realize it.

As I have written before, I am a firm believer that media creates a subversive subculture in us. We behave out of our culture. Right and wrong largely don’t matter in culture-driven behaviour.

And, that’s the danger.

Cannibals eat human flesh because it is in their culture. Witchdoctors make human sacrifice because it is in their culture to do so.

Violence and bloodshed have become part of our life. Murder doesn’t send anymore chill down our spine. Sexual abuse is part of our lifestyle.

And, the question is, can media shy away from the responsibility of inculcating and nurturing such a subversive culture which in the long run will influence individual behaviour? ‘

Unfortunately, no. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten the little hands of media from the stench of blood!

I was shocked to see the other day a new but popular news channel in Malayalam running a scroll ad during its Prime Time broadcast of someone who practises sorcery and black magic. The ad promoted ‘destruction of enemy’ (shathru samharam). The same channel didn’t have any qualms about running regular ads on an Ayurvedic aphrodisiac which has been under some legal cloud.

So, the bottom line is business, and for money we are ready to let go ethics and values. Yes, media too is business, and media houses have to make money but it should not be at the cost of ethics and values or in the form of paid news.

But promoting a brand for sorcery and black magic to see our ‘enemies destroyed’, we are inadvertently promoting vengeance and violence.

The danger is, we don’t even realise that by watching these ads regularly or reading or watching crime stories reported with a melodramatic stretch of imagination day in day out, a subculture is being formed in our conscience, which subscribes to vengeance and violence, and our actions will be based out of these ‘silent convictions’ of the subculture in us.

Our national media thrives on negativism, and one is not far away from truth that our opinions are largely influenced by the barrage and bombardment of verbal volleys by the opinionated editors who grill politicians across the table as if they were the morality gatekeepers of our nation.

I was happy to read a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai a few Sundays ago in which he promoted the CNN-IBN’s India Positive programme and said ‘enough of the negativism’. Wow, that made my day. I tweeted him congratulating for at least voicing such a thought. Even though his channel is not cleansed of all negative reporting, at least a feeble thought against negativism is heartening.

In my recent interview with Dr Shashi Tharoor, he has singled out the television channels’ mad chase of TRP ratings as the cause for the decline of responsible journalism in the country. He said that the channels are not ‘breaking something but someone’.

During my very brief stint with a television channel, I have heard the regrets of many reporters that they have become just ‘byte gatherers’. I have had reporters confessing to me that they don’t remember the last time they did a good journalistic story.

Talking about television media, if I say it has gone to the dogs, you can’t crucify me. I am not joking, and it is not a print journalist’s dig at the visual media either. DogTV is a channel dedicated for the dogs in America! Going by reports, the channel is getting popular because millions of dogs in America are home alone during the day when their masters are out at work.

After a successful rollout in California earlier this year, the channel is now available online. The promoters are looking at a nationwide distribution.

I’m sure the cats won’t take it easy. And, the serial producers in India can think on their toes and come up with some tearjerkers for the canine folks! 

We can’t say that communication technology is only for us. Dogs do have their day, don’t they? 

(This article was published in Art&Deal Magazine, New Delhi)

Tolerating the Good and Celebrating the Bad

Note: We have been talking about 'responsible tourism' for some time. Why don't we talk about 'responsible journalism'? Unfortunately, we, in Kerala, are in the middle of 'gotcha!' journalism.

A few months ago, dailies in Kerala had a field day reporting details of a gruesome murder. A man was murdered, by his friend, chopped into pieces and was put in several plastic bags which were buried in the backyard.

Most dailies splashed the news with at least a five-column picture of the dug-out plastic bags! A man in many plastic bags—butchered and chopped like beef!

A Keats line comes up… ‘My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my senses…’

The debate whether we should ‘splash’ or ‘scream’ such stories and pictures above the fold is pretty old now.

I have been a silent watcher of contemporary news media, and a silent believer in the power of positive news, and the adverse effects of negative news.

No news is good news, but in media bad news is good news. Yes, we tolerate the good, celebrate the bad and go ecstatic over the gruesome.

Pick up any vernacular daily, and turn to the local pages and I bet eight out of 10 stories will be about murder, rape, theft, vandalism and human savagery. We celebrate human pervasion in the pretext of ‘news value’ and ‘giving what the readers want’.

In Kerala, the most used word in news media is ‘peedanam’, which in the evolved context means sexual abuse of a minor girl. Every other girl is being abused these days, and I firmly believe that there is even ‘sexual abuse beats’ in newsrooms. A cub reporter is not worth his salt if he cannot unearth a case or two of ‘peedanam’.

Not for a moment am I in support of abusing a minor girl, but celebrating it in media and supplying it to the readers as an energy supplement is sick.

I believe that man is inherently evil, and civilization is a process of getting rid of the evil tendency. But the way our media is playing up to the darker side of human psychology is disturbing. We all know that there is no dearth of bad news or gruesome news across the globe. But if we are bent on celebrating the beastly nature of man, what’s the role of civilization? Media is not just for informing but for redeeming as well.

Media creates a trend in readers and audience. It plays a critical role in shaping their psyche, and that is where ‘responsible journalism’ becomes relevant. Investigative journalism and sensational journalism are not two sides of a coin. Sensational journalism is the pervasive face of a noble vocation whereas investigative journalism (that too carried out with a noble, pure motive) makes journalism the whistleblower, which it should be.

If we continue writing ‘colour stories’ of farmers committing suicide because of debt and bad harvest, we are creating a trend in farmers to believe that the only way to escape debt is to commit suicide. When was the last time we read a story of a farmer who fought the odds and came out a winner? Sure there are many if we go looking for them. But who needs such passive, less-dramatic stories?

But if the newsroom think-tanks are determined to play up such positive, encouraging stories, they will surely discourage negative thoughts and destructive tendencies, and help build a positive society.

I remember reading a story a few months ago which talked about a handicapped man building a library in memory of his late brother. It was such a good story that it, even though covertly, spread the message of brotherhood, love, commitment and filled the readers’ heart with hope.

Why can’t we read and see such stories in the mainstream media? It is not that the world we live in is bereft of goodness. In fact, there are millions of good people and good initiatives around us, but media does not believe they will make a good read. After all, who wants to read a story where the devil doesn’t play a lead role?

Positive news is not paid news. Paid news is the death of journalism, and is worse than prostitution. Positive news is not without a critical tone, but even if it criticises, it is constructive criticism. Positive news is calling a spade a spade, and not calling a spade an axe!

If negative news is a drug that energises the pervasive matter in the brain, positive news, in the long run, will fill a reader’s heart with a hope to live and it will eventually eclipse the nihilism in us.

Positive news may not satisfy the gossip-mongers in us, it may not warm up the rapist and murderer in us, but it will surely place another brick in building a society which will be far healthier and sounder than what we live in at the moment.

Positive journalism is not reporting without spine, but reporting with responsibility and without bias.

And, media marketing and circulation guys, please excuse. We all know it is easier to sell the bad and ugly than the good.

Positive news may be hard to sell but it is the right product to sell, only if the editors and media management would listen.

(Sabin Iqbal is editor of Vibrant Keralam. This article is published in Vibrant Keralam and Art & Deal magazine, New Delhi)

Spilling Beans Or Bombs?

Note: We have no answers. And, it is not for any answers that we ask questions. We ask questions because we live in a state of illusion.


The ETV interview of Army Chief Gen. VK Singh brings forth some interesting aspects of reporting and interviewing. And, the maya world of media.

Since the interview was aired, hell has broken loose over the country and the Parliament, but since the UPA has developed an immune system to all forms of vital attacks, the government is not shaken. Nor is the Defence Minister, Mr AK Antony, who at the best of times prefers to keep a meaningful silence, is perturbed.

A CBI investigation has been ordered, and duly a pack of sunset men, some already blushing on their habitual tawny liquid, has converged on the many channels to scream at each other rather pally, and also to out-decibel the megalomaniac anchors a.k.a editors-in-chief, who live under the hallucination of being the rulers of the country.

The entire country has erupted over the revelations of the Army chief that he, the very head of one of the most powerful and largest armies in the world, has been approached with some crore of rupees to 'clear a file'.

The media, especially the news channels, which these days behave like street dogs scrambling for a piece of bone, hyperacted as it is their wont.

Please watch the interview again.

And, now let us ask ourselves a few questions.

Did Gen Singh give you the feeling that he was going to spill some beans, not exactly some harmless seeds but bombs that would blast?

The tone of the interview, and most importantly, that of the Army chief, was not aggressive. His expressions didn't say that he was on a mission. He was as lukewarm as a stagnant pond. On the contrary, the reporter looked stifled and stiff.

Now, let's come to the point.

We have to make a note here that the Army chief didn't make a claim that he was offered a bribe of Rs14 crore, but on the other hand, the reporter asked him that he knew that the General was made such an offer and wondered why he didn't complain.

Now, the expressions of both the journalist and the General didn't give us a feeling that they were discussing something 'classified'. If the interviewer was 'breaking some news' to the General--of him knowing the bribery attempt--then the officer should have been 'shocked'. But he didn't. He replied as if it was as innocuous as a beat question.

The reporter didn't go for the jogular either by asking the General a straightforward question if any middleman had ever approached him. It maybe the unthinkable but then, the way both of them handled the 'unthinkable' was quite casual.

That leads to the doubt if the interview was a fix--setting a platform for the General who has already lost his face over the date of birth issue with the government. Being the Chief of Army, Gen. Singh must be aware of the implications of someone in his chair being approached with a price tag, and he should have done something significant by ing it up with the higher authorities. The officer claims Defence Minister AK Antony had advised him to keep away from 'such people'.

So, the General has kept his gun silent, but he has made sure to keep the power dry!

The General is a venerable officer, who is not happy with his official date of birth. So is AK Antony, an honest minister, who suffers from general reticence and selective dumbness. The reporter is a seasoned pro--he was not excited about holding such an important piece of information which can further rock the wayward UPA-. True, most journalists are privy to the ugly underbelly of many angels.

And, then hell broke loose, on a day when Team Anna was rubbing it wrong against all Parliamentarians, and national news channels' 24x7 'Breaking News' scroll began to scream about the Army chief being attempted for bribery. By evening political hues spread across the whole issue. Congress came to the rescue of AK Antony while BJP began questioning the efficiency of PM and DM against the indecisiveness over the matter.

Yes, if our Army is targeted, it is a serious matter--but then our Army is not any more a virtuous virgin, sir!. In the first place, a responsible officer like Gen. VK Singh should not have kept mum for a couple of months about such a serious issue. And, once he has decided to be quiet on the subject, to come out the fag end of his career, blaming the system and the wheels within is hard to digest, and falls shy of grace.

Numbed by details about paid news and how journalists blackmail criminals and fraudsters, the common man is in a state of stupor.

He lives in a world of media illusion--he doesn't know where floor ends and where water begins. He gropes in the noon. He is ethically challenged and morally starved.

Who is the liar? Who knows?

News By The People

We are living in an exciting time. Under a crowded sky of satellites and crisscrossing signals. We are thriving in a flat world, with knocked down cultures and boundaries. We are communicating in a porous global society of 24x7 news and redundant news breaks.

There are no skeletons in the cupboard. No sighs are private and safe between bed sheets.

Communication technologies have revolutionised and redefined our life and the way we live it. They have programme-written our habits and behavioural patterns.

They have dramatically changed the way we do business, and opened new markets and business opportunities for us to buy and sell—be it products, art, ideas or commodities.

During the past decade and half nothing has been changed and reshaped more decisively than the way we communicate.

We grew up believing ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, but now we realise, with shudders down our spine, that a mobile phone can win and destroy hearts and battles more than the pen or the sword could ever do.

People of my generation—those who have just begun life at 40!—might agree with me that if we had mobile phones then we would have married our college sweethearts. In those days, we could hardly get past the girl’s dad who lived around the land-phone like a watchdog or like ‘Cardus at cover’. A nosing mother who hardly sent her daughter out alone—even to fetch newspaper from the gate—was harder to bypass than a metal detector.

The boys who are born with email accounts and grow up fiddling with SIM cards may not understand the vagaries of a lover lived just a generation or two before.

Let’s get back to journalism. It’s been some years now since we stopped following news. News is now following us—in the car, garage, on the road, in the bed and even in the loo!

The way news is presented has dramatically changed. With the advent of New Media and Social Media platforms, media companies have begun to look like software firms with a clutch of Apps. Magazine, newspapers, books, music, TV shows, etc., are now being ‘Appified’.

Appification is poised to be the major factor reshaping media, especially news media. We are likely to see a direct influence through a proliferation of specialised media apps, and also indirectly through changes in consumer attitudes, expectations, and purchasing habits.

Appification throws open to newspapers a powerful marketing and pricing strategy called ‘versioning’, which is selling of content in different packages using apps. The apps will help a reader to pick and choose a news package according to his or her budget or preference.

Like news presentation, news gathering has also evolved quite breathtakingly. Now with a decent mobile phone you can shoot and upload in no time. With New Media technologies and the Social Media platforms, media has been democratised. The ivory pillars of the Fourth Estate have been knocked down. The privileged breed of journalists now has to rub shoulders with the milkman and the paperboy.

Live television broadcast has earlier forced a changed in the narrative style of a print journalist. Print newspapers can hardly break news now. Newsroom think-tanks are thinking up strategies to keep the morning dailies relevant.

Now with the new gadgets and devices that can beat even television broadcast in terms of exclusivity and speed, the Citizen Journalist has arrived. And, with him a new culture of news media.

Over two decades ago when George Holliday and his wife shot from their LA home balcony a scuffle on the street with their cumbersome handycam, even they didn’t realise that their act would one day be marked as the pioneer act of ‘citizen journalism’.

Social Media platforms have taken away the privilege of the Old Media, and have given the citizen to be his/her own publisher. It has flattened the world but it has posed great challenges as well. CJ is good, and that is the future. But there is a flip side.

When the man on the street becomes a publisher, many things are at risk. He or she has to exercise ‘media freedom’ with restraint and a degree of responsibility. Just because he has the technology, he can’t publish without thinking twice. Like having nuke capability, it in fact demands you to be more responsible.

I will give an example. The other day some students of a private college found their principal dozing in his room. They clicked their phones and published the photo on Facebook. I won’t buy this. Yes, sleeping on duty is wrong but a student should not photograph it and make it public. It amounts to character assassination.

However, Social Media’s essential role in serious journalism can no longer be ignored. In the coming years, Social Media journalism will finally grow up. Journalism will be more collaborative, thanks to the fundamental social nature of the Internet.

The new real-time news cycle will be different from what we have seen all these years.

A ‘story’ will not be a reporter’s exclusive product. It may be shaped by the people who are involved in that story, curated by editor from different sources and circulated back to the readers/audience. News will no more be ‘for the people’ but ‘by the people’.

CJ and New Media technologies have watered down the relevance of the ‘journalist’ but not journalism. It will continue to play the role of a whistleblower.

Now the question of freedom. Earlier, media freedom was the prerogative of the management. Now since the management has been knocked away, the participants in a story must display a sense of maturity, transparency and responsibility.

Yes, we are living in an exciting world, and will see a more exciting tomorrow but all these gadgets, technologies and possibilities must make us more mature and responsible because freedom is either relative or a myth!

(Sabin Iqbal is editor of Vibrant Keralam)

--Published in Art&Deal Magazine

Only Dead Fish Swim With The Stream

Note: This is a story I wrote for Yentha.com watching Yuvraj Singh half-way through last World Cup. Many things have happened since then. He won the Cup. And, now battling a rare type of cancer.

Men come of age in different ways—some win wars, some win tournaments, and some others win hearts.

When Roy Emerson first won the Wimbledon in 1964, a wire intro said that the 21-year-old son of a rancher had attained maturity.

When Sachin Tendulkar scored his first Test hundred, against the English, and saved India from a defeat, we all said the lad had come of age.

When Rafael Nadal won the Wimbledon after rolling his way to glory in the historic Roland Garros clay and mud, the stringy-haired Mallorcan too attained maturity.

Talent is a huge responsibility. It is a two-edged sword—it will either help you conquer, or kill you.

Nothing makes one sadder than seeing talent unfulfilled. The destiny of Vinod Kambli, Andrea Jaeger (now a Dominican nun) or L Sivaramakrishnan makes one glum.

So much was written about Ambati Rayidu and Imran Nazir. Both young men did not end up where their talent should have taken them to.

Talent is like giving a million dollars to the wanderlust. He could burn all that away in a jiffy on trips, drinks and brawls.

Not that the bohemian is as useless and repulsive as used condoms, but surely the guy who toils hard warms the cockles of your heart.

Nothing more endearing than watching someone transforms from a reckless bohemian into a responsible chap who takes care of the groceries for home.

Taking up responsibilities and fulfilling one’s talent are signs of a man’s maturity. Signs of him coming of age.

Like Emerson, Tendulkar and Nadal did.

That’s why watching Yuvraj Singh bat in this World Cup is gratifying. He has always been the bohemian, a southpaw with a heady mix of arrogance and elegance—a rare breed of class and crass.

He has thrilled us with his raw talent—with his batsmanship that elevates us from boredom to bliss in a matter of a few strokes. He can leave the entire stadium spellbound with a flurry of shots that border on the surreal like Dali’s masterpieces—floating, hanging and suspended.

He can make the bowlers look like zoozoos—comic, idiotic apparitions of no significance.

Yet, he can disappoint all of us. Either by trying the impossible like all gladiators, or by letting the streaks of arrogance dominate his conduct.

A year ago, Yuvraj was the prodigal son of Indian cricket. There was no doubt about his talent, but his attitude and application were not in the zone.

A brilliant, alert fielder inside the ring, he began to move like a slow coach. There were signs of a paunch, and laziness.

A bad patch and injures made things worse. A sedate IPL, a pale shadow the T20 World Cup that India won where he blasted six sixes in an over from young Broad, added insult to those injuries.

Players like Yuvraj or Sehwag bank on their talent and confidence. He stretches out not watching the ball on to the face of the bat, but trusting their hand-eye coordination and a calculation that defies lesser batsmen’s sense of timing. He times the shot, the lovely arc of the bat meeting the ball somewhere on its journey unleashing it like a ballistic missile.

His adventures hinge on his confidence. Losing his place in the Test team was a huge blow to Yuvraj’s ego, and it was dented like a flimsy aluminum vessel.

His feet hesitated to leave the crease, his bat came down tentatively. The timing went awry.

But Yuvi kept the faith in his talent—and was inspired by the ‘special person’ he said he is playing this World Cup for. His father, Yograj, feels the special person is most likely the special person to Indian cricket. Yograj, who played his only Test for India in 1981 against New Zealand, says Sachin has always been a guardian angel for his son.

We know how Yuvi thanked Sachin for a century against the Sri Lankans for his advice on how to sort out Ajantha Mendis.

His approach to his batting during this tournament has impressed all. He has so far scored five half-centuries in six outings, with four man-of-the-matches, and picked up a clutch of wickets.

It is good for Indian cricket that he seems to have set aside that suicidal brashness, and has begun to bat more sensibly, making good use of his precocious talent.

Batting is often like a watch-maker’s job. You need concentration, precision and patience in good measure.

Yuvraj showed in his last outing against the Australians that he has come of age. If he had thrown away his wicket trying any flamboyant shot, the Australians would have crawled back into the match. Champion teams need just a foothold to creep back. But Yuvraj applied himself and cut all frills out and saw India home.

That’s maturity. That’s sensible batting. And, he gave vent to all those bottled up pressure with a Tarzan-like war cry after scoring the winning boundary.

We are just two days away from the crucial, pressure-cooker match against Pakistan at Mohali. Home boy Yuvraj must have saved all his marbles for this game, like every player on either side for it is the match of the tournament so far.

Winning the World Cup is the icing on the cake for Yuvi, and a perfect gift for the ‘special person’.

But, more than winning any tournament, it is important that Yuvraj hasn’t let his enormous talent go waste in the tide of odds and obstacles.

Like Malcolm Muggeridge said: ‘Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.’

Glad that Yuvraj didn’t let himself swim with the stream like a dead fish.

The prodigal son has come home, coming of age.