Gerald D'Cunha

Pic.: Anand Ashokan R ight now, as I write this, something exceptionally happy or something exceptionally sad, shocking or disturbing might have just happened - or might be happening – somewhere, there, in the world... Like our Mangalyaan doing it to the Mars orbit... Or, that white tiger eating the school boy inside the Delhi zoo... Like those Andhra ladies thrashing the two auto-drivers for raping a hapless girl... Or, those terrorists slitting the throat of American journo... Like our brave soldiers doing so much in Kashmir... Or, those young college-kids getting washed away in Beas river... Like that deadly road or air accident... Like that wife cheating on her husband or other way around... Like, that local politician flaunting his crores-worth shirt made of pure gold... Like that dog who does what a man cannot... Like someone, in the dread of the night, sighting a ghost or an alien in his backyard... Like that just-born, who can play with th...

What is good with my nation? Our news channels don’t tell me this. They tell me, what is wrong with it… and, they tell me this relentlessly, remorselessly… every night, everyday. They install a dozen experts to tell me why everything is wrong with my nation and its government… Why we should grumble, complaint, protest, ask or revolt. Turn to whichever channel you wish, you get the same thing: half-a-dozen men and women arguing and going nowhere. Their arguments are predictable, and the anchors impatience, too. It is night time… Nine p.m. It is supposed to be an hour of my night prayers or supper. Instead, it has become the ‘News Hour’… No, it has become the ‘Noise Hour’! They need something bad, something very, very bad, everyday to happen in my country… so that they can ‘feed this into my mind’, each night, before I go to sleep… Just as, when I was small, my loving mother gave me a glass of warm milk to drink before she put me to sleep, ev...