It is not often that we see a journo waving to a crowd, and rarer is the sight of him waving to a gathering of fellow journos. Though waving essentially is a politician’s prerogative, which he does even if there is no crowd, the fact that a journo too could manage the gesture with a panache that can put professional political wavers to shame, is indeed a matter of great gratification.
But then, there is more than what meets the eye in that simple, spontaneous act by the journo under reference, who is actually doubling up as an official emissary currently by virtue of his close association, albeit as a news source, with a prolific killer of note.
The waving has to be studied in the context of the media mob which is stalking him day in and day out– that is, whenever he himself is not stalking the jungles in ‘search’ of his exclusive bandits– for tidbits of info on what the poacher is now preaching. And the act attains greater significance in view of the reality that he … I mean the journo, not the brigand … is the only one in the entire civilized world who has unmitigated access to the latter’s hideouts and can breeze in and out like, well, the breeze itself.
Now, that explains the gusto with which he waved to his bretheren yesterday after yet another trek and tete-a-tete with you know who. But the hapless presscorps had had to contend with that show of camaraderie for the day. They will have to wait for another 24 hours for the routing press conference at the usual city hotel whilst the ubiquitous cassette and the familiar video sound and light show would be broad/tele cast for them to scoop.
For, the responsible journo knows his duties well with his first priority being to brief the CMs who have been downed by a strange cocktail of ignorance and impotence and therefore are direly in need of a helping hand from their only saviour.
Does it not indicate the conquest of the political space, not to mention jungle space, by the hacks and the evolution of media itself as the sole custodian of the people’s interests? If politicos, who are genetically addicted to power, themselves feel powerless and on the contrary have voluntarily abdicated, how could a responsible media shy away from the divine calling?
With the States having withered away like those autumn leaves in the distant thickets of Sathyamangalam, who better to take that place than the all-knowing, omniscient, jungle scarred editors whose exclusive stories on elusive fugitives have catapulted them into being the exclusive arbiters of justice?
So what is wrong if they set the State’s agenda, as dictated by a brigand into a micro-cassette recorder, for are these emissary editors not entitled to do that owing to their exclusive patenting of the jungle trail? By making inroads into the tough terrains that even the government dreads to tread, and gaining insight into the minds of bandits who have been grossly misunderstood all these days, they have afterall, staked their life and limbs for the exalted cause of making bandits seem righteous?
In any case, is it not a stark truth that their intricate knowledge of the life and styles of a brigand is now putting them, besides two forlorn CMs, in good stead vis-a-vis Veerappan? Thanks to the emissary, the two governments at least have the Voice of Veerappan beamed to them regularly; imagine their plight had the emissary-editor not nurtured his contacts with his source or even declineed to play messenger!
Little wonder that while enterprising editors wave at eager scribes, CMs remain holed up in State secretariats with folded hands, dreading the possibility of running into an impertinant reporter. There is this nagging temptation to ask of the CM, that is if one manages to reach him, why his government deems it fit only to rely on the good offices of the emissary alone while legions of buereaucrsts and armies of cops who are at his disposal are cooling their heels?
Or why his government is going out of the way to accomodate the emissary by doing his every bidding, including withdrawal of cases, posthaste, while being extra cautious not to offend him in any way, let alone grilling him for his nocturnal adventures in the past.
One can at least try to understand the State crawling before the brigand and trying to play ball with him ‘in consideration of the safety of the hostages’, but why subjugate the State and the constitutional authority vested with it to the mercy and discretion of an external emissary whose role and activities themselves could be deemed suspect during normal times and warranted a thorough probe. Well, With governance and rationalism having scooted for a honeymoon to oblivion, it would be futile to expect answers to such questions.
There could not be better times for media, particularly the brigand media, as now. Inveigled by the brigand first for making known his humanistic proclivities and the causes for which he had been killing and poaching, the media, by virtue of that inevitable proximity, is now the most reliable contact with the outlaw.
And by god, how admirably are these reps of the fourth pillar upholding the facade of democracy, that too at a time when the other three pillars are at their weakest worst. Given such unbridled power and importance enjoyed by him, it appears that the emissary has only been very humble in just waving!
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