Happy New Year?

So the party's over, the alcohol's worked its way out of our system and the dance floor's empty. But exactly what were we celebrating? A year that held some 20-odd carcasses of children from Nithari in its bag of surprises? A year that unleashed a madman serial killer on Mumbai? Or the one that witnessed a woman being harassed and abused at a New Year Eve bash? A year that brought to light exactly how jaundiced Indian journalism has become?

I'm not much of a fan of politics, world affairs and everything else that falls into the category. My knowledge of the goings on in what we all hold in awe as 'the world' stops at Wired, Wikipedia and perhaps movies. Of course, when i have been forced to sit through it, i have watched news on channels like BBC, NDTV, CNBC and these days, Times Now. On the night of the 31st, though - or was it the 1st, i don't remember - as i watched the news in Hindi on NDTV, i was quite amazed by how low journalism had stooped to get those viewer ratings shoot beyond the stars.

To illustrate, the case of Nithari's missing children. 38 in all, and about 20 skeletons found. In packets, all sawed up. The accused, who has admitted to molesting and killing these children, is crying foul on the basis of a 'mental disorder'. What was even more apalling, the news channel narrated bits of conversation between the police and the accused, filled with the words 'rape' and 'sex'. The exact bulletin is beyond description in the way it was handled - almost as if the newsreader was gleeful about reading it out. Worse, the conversation kept being typed out on the screen.

Why did it have to happen that way? I mean, it was children we were talking about, for heaven's sake. It makes me angry enough to know just that, and hearing words like sex and rape doesn't add fuel to the fire, it disgusts me that those guys sitting in the studio are stripping those long-gone children of what little innocence they have left in their death. There were bigger issues here, like the class divide that probably prevented the police from investigating further into the situation, or the fact that they were to some extent at fault. Barkha Dutt was probably the first to even touch on these topics, but i don't think they got as much airtime as the whole conversation and constant news flashes of 'rape rape rape'. It makes me feel glad that i didn't get into journalism despite having dabbled in it for a while.

Then there was the episode of a girl being physically harassed at the new year party at Gateway of India. A Midday reporter was on location shooting photographs, unaware of what it was he was capturing - a girl with her boyfriend, suddenly surrounded by men who were feeling her up, pinching her and what not. It was probably the next hottest news after Nithari, on air across all news channels by the 1st or 2nd.

Once more, the photographs being showed in succession, again and again, as the barracudas moved in on her. Ask a question instead, did anything happen to the slimeballs, and the media draws a blank.

Interestingly, my grandmother had this response to the whole thing - why should the girl go out dressed like that, she's only inviting trouble; and why should she go out on new year in the first place? Points to be noted, she was amply covered and more so than most women in Mumbai apparently dress up when going out. Besides, should a woman/girl/teenager stop stepping out of home or going to parties just because there are sex-starved, lustful assholes of men lurking around every corner? How about fixing them for a change?

Half of January's passed us all now, and although these news snippets are not out of the media circuits, they've lost most of their steam. What replaces them - as i saw today as a banner headline, front page news, right on top of everything else in the paper - is something like 'Abhishek proposes, Ash says Yes!'.

So what is it that we are celebrating, again?