Column | Window Seat 5.1.20

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee | 5.1.20

Happy New Year

The last decade has been described by many as the decade of protest. As several countries embraced ultra-nationalism after the heady days of liberalization came to a close- there were protests. Me-too movement spread across several countries. So did protests against discrimination against LGBT communities. In India there were violent protests against CAA and police brutality. There were protests against price rise.

Photo: Subhojit Sarkar

Protest has vibrancy and a possibility- of ending the concerned problem or issue or at least framing and highlighting it. But it also has the risk of going off tangent and turning violent- as has been seen in many issues across the world.

Let us hope that the New Year will bring an end to the protests by ending the occasions giving rise to the protests.

Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah
Sarve Santu Niraamayaah |
Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu
Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet |
Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

May All be Happy,
May All be Free from Illness.
May All See what is Auspicious,
May no one Suffer.
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

Competition Mania

During the winter holidays, I see announcements of different kinds of competitions. I see people taking part in those competitions, parents egging their children to take part and win. This is good up to a point. Beyond a point it turns into a mania.

Take for example the Fart Competition organised in Surat in Gujarat, touted as the country's first ever in September 2019. The competition was to find out who can let out "longest", "loudest" and "most musical" farts. Sixty people had registered to display their prowess. It is different issue that only 20 turned up at the venue and only three participated. They too, however, failed to pass the test as they could not find the courage to pass wind. According to the organizer, of these, only three took to the stage, in front of 70 people in attendance, along with a few media channels, and ended up failing to "perform".

(To know more about this bizarre competition see: https://www.indiatoday.in/…/world-s-best-fart-championship-…)

The point I am trying to make is about this madness to compete and win, that urge to grab 10 minutes of fame, that fleeting lime light. Compete to do what and win what- this question is gradually becoming irrelevant.
Next in line we may have poop competition or pee competition. In fact in our childhood we used to have this pee competition- who can pee to what distance. Now that could be packaged into a grand championship. Like hyped boxing matches, two competitors will pee and there would be referee with a measuring tape.
Who knows it might just happen. Whoever had thought, there could be a fart competition.

Why Journalists are attacked?

Journalists are often intimidated and attacked while they are on duty- like it happened in Bhubaneswar, Odisha recently where a lady journalist was attacked. Many of the journalists have been killed. Committee of Protect Journalists, an international body in its 2018 report says that “In the past decade, at least 324 journalists have been silenced through murder worldwide and in 85 percent of these cases no perpetrators have been convicted. It is an emboldening message to those who seek to censor and control the media through violence,” Every year CPJ comes out with Global Impunity Index- a list of countries where journalists are under threat. India ranked 14th on the list with 18 murders of journalists with impunity from 2008 to 2018.

As a former journalists myself, I know why journalists are attacked. There are basically four reasons:

1.      Darkness does not like light. People do not like unpleasant truth about them to be brought into open.

2.      Journalists are considered as soft targets, increasingly so.

3.      Our civil society organizations do not value the role and contribution of the journalists to the extent of physically or otherwise take steps to protect them or protest when journalists are attacked.

4.      The Govt. feels it can ignore the journalists as it has 'good relation' with the media owners and can intimidate the journalists as the owners consider the journalists as expendables.

Adda

In Bengali there is a word called ADDA. Pronounced: AAD..dda. This word is there in Odia language also. Somebody has defined it as the sublime activity of being busy without doing nothing. That is closer to the meaning of adda as meant in Odia, where it has a derogatory hue. In Bengali it has a different and up-scaled connotation. One can look at it as the midway between a gupshup and a serious discourse. Anything under the sun and beyond could be the subject of an adda. Usually there is a fixed place and loosely fixed time. Though an adda usually has familiar faces, anybody can join at given point of time and has the freedom to change the subject altogether and start a new one. It usually continues for hours till the friendly neighbourhood chaiwala closes his shop or the participants are constrained to go home.

What are you doing?

Friend 1: What are you doing?

Friend 2: Just finished dinner with wife… and now holding Scotch

Friend 1: Wow, which one? Black label or Red label?

Friend 2: ‘Scotch Brite’ re bhai… bartan dho raha hu. (Washing the utensils)

(Courtesy: Social Media)

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 The author, a journalist turned media academician lives in Central Odisha town of Dhenkanal.

An anthology of his weekly column Window Seat, published in 2019 is being published as a book. Should you want a copy with introductory discounted price, write to him at: mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com