When I landed in hospital two years back with palpitations and hypertension, the doctor, a good friend despite being my reader, said: ’I have been expecting you for quite some time’! He claimed with authority that his was no idle prophecy but a natural professional conclusion. In his view, the constant outburst of cynicism and anger plus the pains and pangs of running a media were bound to take a toll. And after the routine demands of modern medicine in terms of tests, treatment and bills were met, he gave me a simple prescription that everyone knows but never follows: Be Positive!
‘Dont you have anything good to write about?’ is a question that every journo faces from the audience. The common view is that mediafolk are irrevocably addicted to exaggerating the ills of society and human behaviour. Many found last week’s column, ‘Chasing Shadows?’ very depressing and promised to shun me in future if I did not mend my ways. That’s a stiff warning that I better heed, at least this week. Believe me, I am a guy all for a gung-ho approach to life and feel good in as much my goal as it is for all of you. Reason why I do not read columns that begin with, ‘The problem with this country is…’. Nor do I watch TV serials in which the M and D in-law are unravelling their plot to bump each other off precisely at twilight when your own spouse is lighting the auspicious lamp at home!
That said, fact is the bias towards a gloomy outlook pervades society, not just journalism. This is apparent from the comments posted on social media sites by ‘audience’-turned-‘spontaneous journos’. A pen or keyboard at hand and a medium of expression can convert even a never-say-die optimist into a diehard critic! Really, there is no dearth of positive stories; but without resort to surveys I can say that it is the negative ones that catch the eye and fetch readership. So, just as doctors revel in diseases and lawyers relish disputes, despite ‘commitment’ to good health or justice, the wielders of words, albeit in the name of duty to inform, have a natural nose for the miasma of the malignant and the morbid. Even satire and sarcasm are only semantic salvages from sordid realities and sad happenings.
If the certainty of decay and death is understood, life and its vagaries can be seen in a less dim light. By that logic, positives probably can emerge only from the negative. Profound philosophy? Maybe, but how do you break it down to practical prose in print, particularly when one is under pressure to be positive? As I confessed in para 2, the threat by readers along with my own itch for some feel good which in turn backed by some strong medical evidence had worked wonders. So, at the start of the week, last Sun-Mon, I was brimming with +ve energy, sworn to see the silver lining, and nothing else. But what a week I had picked!
A report in a nut(ty) shell:
Sunday night, somewhere in North India a bus with its load of passengers plunged from the mountain road into the valley below, yielding, lo, a few survivors. The majority, around thirty two, died. Considering that of the lakhs of buses plying on miles of mountain terrain, only one had taken the leap that day, one can only marvel at this miniscule margin of error.
Monday morning, the TN Express from Delhi arrived in Chennai safely and ‘shortly’, that is with one compartment less. All passengers and baggage barring the ones in coach S 11 were intact. A pre-dawn ‘minor’ fire near Nellore that could have spread to the entire train but luckily did not, had damaged that coach and killed only about 30 sleeping passengers, a statistical coup considering that the Indian Rlys is the largest such network in the world with lakhs of trains on miles of tracks carrying … you know the rest!
Monday and Tuesday were marked by back to back power outages in the whole of North, East and North-Eastern India. Despite the dark scenario in which it was difficult to spot linings, silver or otherwise, the outgoing power minister Shinde declared that there was no problem as power had been restored. He was right, for otherwise there could not have been a second outage and prospect of more. But no one heard him because the mikes were off. Still, the power outages proved that we indeed have power. Our distant ancestors and apemen had none. Today, the RBI painted a positively grim future for the economy, bunking the doomsday prophets who predicted a ‘no future’.
Wednesday was witness to three bomb blasts in Pune. Shinde had just become HM. About six or seven blasts less than the usual ten meant that the intelligence … of terrorists …is diminishing even if that of our agencies is not exactly rising. For, nil casualties meant the bombs went off early. Another bus tumbled downhill killing only 22. Coming as it does after a gap of three long days, that’s a statistical swansong for road safety. Experts declared a rainfall deficit for more than half of India. This means more sunshine and a drastic cut in Vitamin D deficiency, even though most may go without food.
At the time of going to press, Thursday is still young. And Friday is in the womb of time, its secrets hidden. Still, here is a round up: PC’s re-entry as FM was celebrated by the Union Govt by allowing Pakis to invest in India. With such Foreign Direct Intrusion, one can now expect home grown terror to get truly global. Fasters Anna and Co are still alive, if not exactly kicking. No school child has fallen through the bus floorboard or from the footboard so far this week. It is quite a time since someone vanished into an open manhole or sewer. Stray murders and fatal accidents bore no comparison to the population. Bad roads and uncleared garbage ensured that public money was saved.
The flow of such good news is overwhelming. I cannot help patting myself for testing positive on all ills that ails all of us!
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