Genocide Denied. Genocide Begotten.

I think I have developed a knack for testing myself with all the grossness of historical documentaries. Each time I think I have escaped the clogging of my own head with the images and screams and ugliness, something more unimaginable comes up. I landed upon

SCREAMERS (Click here to follow on YouTube) , feat. System of A Down, the idea of the film was to cover something few documentaries put so wholly into picture..... 'GENOCIDE' or the killing of genos (races) is truly a 20th century phenomenon.

Starting with the 1915 Genocide of the Armenians in Turkey, The Holocaust, Pol-pot's Cambodia, Kosovo, Serbia, Rwanda and Darfur! Each time the world forgets people in their miseries, each time this comes up again.

The graphics were all real archive footage of these times and these places. More horrifying were stark inconsistencies in the way the world has responded or not responded. The figures speak for themselves, 1500000 Armenians. 6000000 Jews. 200000 Bosnians. 600000 Rwandans. 400000+ in Darfur. Each time political and ideological pressure originates from a majority under threat, the minorities suffer.

Sometimes you often wonder if these acts are even possible for a human to commit, sometimes you feel ashamed of the species! Like when you hear descriptions of survivors from such carnages!

Armenia is a country we would know or bother little about as some far off God forsaken land. The fact that Turkey denied the occurence of a genocide there is further unknown to most of us. But the entire documentary, filmed alongside 'System of A Down' band with members of

Armenian descent presents a grim picture at how the west and particularly the U.S. and U.K. have failed to recognize the cause of the Armenian people for the more important tactical location of Turkey.... Russia's underbelly!

I never really liked the said band's music that much and sticking to a cause and promoting it through concerts is nothing new for bands. But having seen and read about some of these genocides before seeing this film, theres hardly anything to disagree with in the film.

For a major part in me, life goes on as usual. You work, you carry on and nothing changes. But having knowledge of such stuff, I guess would make me more conscious about what are the threats to us in our society, because each time we forget the tragedy of millions.... they come back to haunt us again in another 'Genocide'.

Move on, Stay back!

There are places and situations when you move out and say goodbye to people, the people stay back and carry on their usual lives and you have something good happening around and some place exciting to goto. Then there are times when you're the one staying back and people say good bye to you!

I have lived away from home for the past 4 years now, I have shuttled frequently. When you reach home, your own town, your best friends, your favorite hangouts.... the world glitters!

Every time I came back home, I remember having a warm and enthusiastic family, my best friends, my love and everyone that really mattered most over here! I would visit them, have a lot of fun, do everything from treks on fortresses to getting high on chocolates, I would leave, they'd say good bye, a big hug and the I'd return and the same again!

This time as well, I came back. I had everyone, I had a lot of fun. They say you enjoy life more when you've all kinds of time! I had this one amazing and perhaps the last such period!

I lived it. And we rocked. Only this time, God thought it would be fun to give me the doze!

All my friends have joined colleges, post grad studies in all parts of the country in all sorts of courses and I waved them off, each one of them! They all wished me luck, hugged me and be gone and here I am, sitting alone.

I guess I am lucky, God has blessed me with such a short time for 'doing nothing'. I've invested it all in all the stuff I like. I've worked and chilled out and unwinded and hogged. I've made some startling discoveries, I finally realized why we call what we call the 'idiot box'. I've seen every shower in Jaipur. I've done all sorts of social networking and am hooked to an AOE engine type game!

I still feel the joblessness, the few weeks I'm spending like this make me realize how difficult is it to say good bye and stay and how easy is it to move on!

God has been kind, I've found people who did it everytime smiling yet letting me know how they'd be bored once I'm gone and what all we'd do on my next return.

Its a few more days to Florida. The exodus is about to begin! I'm excited. But I have it for me figured out, it can really be lonely to stay back!

Breaking Crap!

Funny as it has always been, I am once again entrapped in the strict regime of 24hr news channels blurting out nonsensical and almost whimsical accounts of everything like:

"How the Taliban in the Swat plan to regroup": something that even dear Obama doesn’t have a clue of, a question boggling intelligence agencies of atleast 10 countries!

and my current favourite...

"How the plane carrying socialite Mufatlal 'safely landed' with 72 lac worth of 'illegal' jewelry" as if any aircraft carrying anything illegal was bound to crash land!!

The video broadcast's loop-button inventors must be tumbling in their graves as they witness the horrific tragedy that has unfolded as 24hr news television in India.....

Where else do you get dedicated sections as the "Breaking News" appear everyday 20:00hrs? As if the news would wait till it’s 8 and then bang on to the world!

Now that’s some redefinition!

 The same news every half hour and on the hour was Star News (then run by NDTV) staple feed, then came the News boom and now on my Tata Sky I have at least 20 news channels churning out the same bits, feeds, crazy animation and inundating sets. You can skip anything on television these days but not the news and it sure may help a few in the iPod generation but for genuine lovers of news bulletins, it’s a sad pain. I was wondering if the Indian law doesn’t prohibit unchecked broadcast of bullshit through the wires and now digital media!

 Take This: "Kal-kripal" or "Teen-deviyan" or so many like those feature babas and sadhus and dhongis (fakesters) openly preaching stuff like IFF you are a Virgo and IFF you have a bad headache THEN you should rub some brick-powder on your head and go give a roti to a cow! 

And Holy Cow! All that your society strived to achieve for over a century, freedom from the clutches of superstitions and modern scientific thought etc. is gone, the same middle ages crap is being fed into the system again from the bottle-neck i.e. the media!

 A "necessary-evil" is the best possible position one can allot to the news scenario in India. No doubt such wonderful work has been made possible by the Indian media that it has its position as the fourth-pillar of our state well-deserved. But the evil takes its toll and by any random guess 7 out 0f 10 channels have underrated performance when it comes to even the most basic news coverage. English reporters not fluent with the language, Hindi reporters speaking as if reporting was worth the business of discussing the locality’s gossip at a tea-stall and God knows what it would be for the regional media.

 Solve it? Here lies the problem, TV and especially news television has become a media so powerful that it can make or break public image in a matter of hours. The dragon unleashed, even the government of the day wouldn't dare tame it as it risks being tainted for the rest of its term!

Print media may still serve a fair semblance in this context but when it comes to television, the average viewer sees news channels as a clan, that competes within to nadir-low levels in claiming that their experts had predicted that a certain team would loose a match before analysts on the other channel did. Yet, whenever a finger is raised upon anyone, clan-o-nomics comes into play and the fraternity would most vociferously protect its members and their idiocy. Even seasoned journalists like Barkha Dutt and Pranoy Roy haven’t been able to resist this temptation and if you look close enough, the clan is essentially same blood.

We would listen day long expert sessions on all aspects of life, sport, human, divine and politics but please inform me if there's a session on any channel which forces the media to introspect or brings to light its failures!

Nothing is perfect, and same goes with the media. The only way out is for strong and opinionated voices (still about 40%) in Indian TV Journalism to step forward and create common minimum standards of what is and what is not going down the wire!

Till then, remember that in one interview with a rape victim in Orissa the reporter asks the woman, “ab apko kaisa lag raha hai?” (“How are you feeling now?”). A fitting analogy to when you as a viewer are asked to write-in and tell us , "how was our show"!

from the Lectern, reporting for meaningful news television in India!