Sothing Shimray
God must be wondering why his special creations – the Homo sapiens – are so ethnocentric so as to make a pretty lady shed so many sweet tears. Who knows, God must be retrospecting where he went wrong while making the special creation thus favouring the growth of so much egoism and what not. Maybe, who also knows, the devil is laughing all the time thinking of his ability to make the special creation of God think like an angel. Well, if we believe the story of Lucifer, remember, the angel also made mistakes. That means, devil has made man think higher than angels. Wow, really wonderful.
Yes, there are many individuals, organizations, etc., who think that they never make mistakes, who never admit to their mistakes even though they know they have made it, who get furious with others if the mistakes are pointed out and so on. Well, well, invariably all these because of…?? (Say it for yourself). Thanks to the devil.
Media people are the worst sufferers to the subjection of these kinds of people everywhere in the world. I suppose Manipur is one such place where that kind of subjection is most prominent in this modern world. I don’t know whether this is because of low level of rational sense of the people. Well, I must admit media people also make mistakes but what about those people? We all know that nobody is a god, not even an angel, but just a mere human being like everyone else.
Well, coming back to the story of the sweet lady journalist, she wept bitterly ’cos she was intimidated at gun point for reporting the story not in favour of one particular organization. How I wish I could have offered her my shoulder to cry on. But I didn’t have the courage to do that as I am not her boyfriend. However, her tears melt my heart when I contemplate how some people are so bad. No doubt, my consoling few words emolliated her to wear a smile with courage. And her pretty face with her jolly nature once again made the sun come out again in the hearts of many men, of course including mine, to be very frank.
Hardly two days later when I return to my town – what can I say, Oh my Morung Express – a show cause notice to poor me and another colleague of mine awaits me. The reason for serving the show cause notice was for taking the press release of another organization that pointed out their mistakes in handling a particular issue. Now, I needed the encouragement of my sweet and pretty colleague. So I dialled her number. She answered back “Life is a movie and journalism is a thriller”. Well, thrillers are very exciting, isn’t it so? But in real life it is another thing.
Anyway, I challenged the show cause notice about the rationality of serving the notice to a journalist rather than the originating organization. I also challenged the immunity of their organization from the eye of the media in this modern world. You see, we are not living in Saddam’s Iraq, Taliban’s Afghanistan or in those barbaric days where might is always right, but in a democratic world with democratic constitution. But, they contended that no local journalist should write about them, except, of course their good deeds. Its O.K for other organizations that do not click to their ideas who can criticize, it’s also O.K for non-local journalists to write ’cos they cannot be controlled, but for a local journalist it’s unthinkable.
Well, well, well, what do you think of this? God has every right to retrospect why he made these kind of people, isn’t it? Poor me and my colleague were threatened with a fine which we will never give. Let them go to their devil to take their fine. As the world does not end with that day, just yesterday, my colleague received another letter of a similar nature. Oh my God, sorry, my Morung Express, what’s happening to the world? Is the world going forward or backward?
Where are all those press rights in this democratic world? Why these people never know that India is a democratic country. Surprising, really surprising. Looks like our society is going backwards because of self-centeredness, egoism, holier-than-thou attitude, pride and what not. I am always immune to mistakes? Wow. In my own sense of term this is purely suppression and discrimination.
But black is black and white is white, journalists will always continue to write the truth. And most of all, I am going to ring my pretty colleague which always warms my heart – though I can never marry her – to say “you are right, life is like a movie and journalism is like a thriller and the actors like us but in real life it also hurts”.
