[Reader-list] Stop Peanuts: Rahul Pandita's 2nd Post

[rahul pandita]

December Seven, Ninety ninety seven. I stopped eating moongfali on the road. Just a day before, my Piece to Camera had appeared on the Television. I was about to become popular; be recognised by people on the streets. ‘Arre, ye to wahi TV wala reporter hai’... they would shout and fathers would try to visualise in me a prospective groom for their daughters. Since I was about to become a Public face, it did not suit my image that I would be caught eating peanuts in a street. No, I just could not afford that. 
   
  For the past month or so, I have been trying to work on my mini graphic novel. Through this novel, I intend to portray the state of Television news channels in India. Narrated by a young reporter, this story would be a chronicle of hope and despair, narcissism and ecstasy, intrigues and complexities, associated with pursuing a career in Television Journalism. I was looking for one perfect frame to begin my story. Weeks passed and I struggled with too many frames. Until one day. 
   
  After watching band after band of ‘Breaking News’ at the Press Club and suspecting at least two waiters to be spies of the Intelligence Bureau, as they served beer, I came out and began to drive towards my home. Near South Extension, where my office previously used to be, I stopped at a traffic intersection. And then I saw him. A young, lanky boy, in his mid twenties, entertaining himself with Peanuts and holding a newspaper under his left arm. He had all the bearings of my protagonist. Lives in Jia Sarai. Has tried his hands, may be at the Civil Services. Now wants to become a Television Journalist. Instant fame. Instant recognition. And he wants to do a story on starvation deaths in Orrisa and the genesis of Naxalite revolution. 
   
  Too bad for him. Let him experience that in Television. Let him fight the frustration of reporting on Mango festival in Dilli Haat. Let him ward off the blues of filing a report on an actor’s illegitimate child. Let him realise that he is a mere pawn; a byte soldier. 
   
  For now, he only stops eating peanuts on the road. 
   
   
   
   


Rahul Pandita 
  www.sanitysucks.blogspot.com
  Mobile: 9818088664

		
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