We fail..yet again!!

The English news channels have been incurring losses for the last 3 years with no plausible time frame as to when they will turn into profits, stated an article in The Economic Times today. After watching the programme, supposedly a tribute to 26/11 on CNN IBN today I thought to myself, “Very soon!”
Before you start thinking that these two are such contrasting thoughts to be linked in any manner whatsoever. But somehow to the utter dismay of our limited thoughts,the TV channels have gone a mile ahead to make it possible.

26/11 symbolized a systemic failure of the state police and political infrastructure. Any tribute being paid to this pogrom has to necessarily focus only on the aftermaths of this extraordinary event and the logically conclusive actions taken post it. So, the choice of guests warrants a special attention as the basic premise of this tribute is to bring to light the shortcomings that we faced then and now. Accordingly my guest list would be strictly restricted to the defence experts from across India and the globe and representatives of the government, people and the judiciary. Any person falling outside this ambit is a complete no-no for such an event.

But to my horror, it wasn’t to be.CNN IBN invited Mrs. Amrita Raichand who as claimed is a survivor of 26/11 as she was present in the Taj when the attack took place. The most important piece of information on her profile was the fact that she happened to be born on one of the many 26/11s,though only sharing the date. Apart from this she did not have any well recognised credential to be present on the program. The fact about her birthday was intelligently highlighted by the host of the show Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai, which was even more shocking. May I ask Mr.Rajdeep (whose otherwise brilliant fact analysis has left many guests speechless many a times) what was his business in stating this fact? And what was the relevance of this fact to the context of the discussion?

To make matters worse the guest in question promptly replied that all her celebrations were now washed out, a comment which she quickly corrected. With all the due respect to her, I would want to blatantly state that we do not care if 26/11 was her birthday. All we do care about is what expertise does she bring to the table which can help us prevent such attacks in the future.

If we pass this as a one off instance and give her a second chance as being our representative, she fared even more disappointingly in the further course of the discussion. On being asked as to why it seems that the anger which was evident on every mumbaikar’s face in the days subsequent to the attack seemed to have faded away, she replied promptly “There is only so much that we can do,we can shout, we can cry- that help us, but it’s the people in power who are the only ones who can do something about it”

And without wasting any time our host takes a break on this note. Well whether or not she made any concrete contribution to the possible palliatives that we were looking for, she has certainly made substantial contribution to the show’s TRPs. After all she symbolised a certain genre of elitist crowd. Well done CNN IBN. Who cares where the hell Mumbai lands up on a similar 26/11 , if and when it were to happen? As long as the channel has a product which can be thoroughly advertised before it loses its recall value, nobody seems to be asking a question. And I thought media has become more responsible.

With deep regret and total disbelief, I switched off the television set. After all there is only so much I can do.