Rape and TRPs

So there was a rape. You know which rape I’m talking about. 

A gang rape.

Bang in the national capital.

In a moving bus.

That went undetected through a police check point.

The victim, a 23-year old girl, was thrown out of the bus into a wilderness. She sustained critical injuries and had to have her intestines removed.

All through this, the social media, which includes me, posted a gazillion outrage messages and pictures, and signed petitions.

The social media came up with several ways to threaten a potential a rapist, ranging from capital punishment to barbed tampons.

I share things, I know what’s happening, but I, a print journalist, have not read a single comprehensive news article on this. Shame on me. I know.

And I admit I know too little. Courtesy, the news channels, to a large extent.

After having watched a few visuals of it, I must say, I’m thoroughly disgusted.

I’m not saying it is overdone. I’m saying it’s so overdone, that I don’t want to even think about the entire episode or read any articles on the same.

Incidents like these put me in a state of quandary. I’m a journalist. Our kind earns their bread and butter by covering such news. 

But displaying large-sized fonts of OUTRAGE! NATIONAL SHAME! VOICE YOUR OUTRAGE on the screen, leaves me wondering what the channels are trying to do.

Yes, a channel needs TRPs. It needs ad revenue. That’s just good business sense. I embrace it.

But forcibly stoking the emotions of the public, instead of telling them what's happening currently, that's just greed.

Calling the mother of a rape victim, and bombarding her with questions like "So, did your daughter ever recover from the trauma?" borders on cruelty. 

What could the news channel possibly be thinking inviting a mother over for the show? A sense of drama spikes TRPs, understood. But this? It’s just plain insensitive. But who cares about insensitivity, when you're earning a couple of crores, right?

And then, there are the ubiquitous debates that have turned into loud shouting contests. For whose benefit, I beg you.

The guests barely get to share their expertise on the issues. Moderators hop from one guest to the other, leaving them bewildered, and rendering us plain confused.

Debates are intended to inform the audience of the current state of affairs, start a thinking process and encourage discussions, not whip the audience into a state of frenzy.

A little information, always was and always is a dangerous thing.

With a large, visible platform like Facebook and Twitter, we run the risk of letting half truths seep through large portions of the population.

For example, someone posted a status that a new law, requiring capital punishment for committing a rape, would not help the situation, because women can’t be trusted. Why? Because four of his friends were victimized by the misuse of dowry harassment laws.

And quotes from a news channel, dubbed  “the national TV” were used to close the argument, which by the way received over 250 replies, consisting of outrage and nonchalance alike.

Do you see what’s happening here? The debates on TV channels are supposed to provoke thinking, and encourage discussion, and not leave us feeling empty and helpless at the state of affairs. 

It’s our kind’s main duty to inform the public. Not dramatize, but inform. Not hold trials on TV, but simply inform. And let the public come to a decision. And we’re failing at it. 

The channels have little information to share. And that's what stumps me. They showcase shows that earn maximum ad revenue. So how come there aren't enough reporters hired to feed information into the system?

And so, what they display, is what they talk, is what they repeat. It’s not information overload, it’s just good-old fashioned spam.

Everything is dumbed down. The information is not served on a platter. But the appropriate reactions to it are fed to us, with one giant spoon.

All of which goes to show something is really rotten at the core of the system.

We seem to be failing in that one sacred duty our profession demands from us- To inform, without dramatizing the situation for the sake of TRPs.

Failing miserably. Every step of the way.

She sat in front of her computer, typing away furiously.

She wrote and cried, wrote a bit more, bit her lip, clawed at her face, but she continued nevertheless.

She shook, she shivered.

Dabbing her eyes with a tissue; she tried to let her mind rein in on her emotions. She took a deep breath, moved back and forth on her chair.

You can do this, she repeated to herself, while touching her keyboard fondly.  

The shivers returned. 

She was a writer, and an accomplished one at that. Words opened new worlds for her. She believed in their power to drive change, to drive her into a new story. She also knew the fatal power they had. She had used them, far too many times, with heaps of success.

She decided what they meant, what they conveyed. 

When the letter arrived today, the words, her one true friend, suddenly seemed alien to her. They were neither charming, nor blunt. They were just a scramble of letters, threatening to push her into the unknown. 

She realized the meaning of her words would change. She knew her view of life would change. A new meaning, a new form. Her imagination, her means of sustenance in this dark world, would be stuffed into a tiny little corner, overshadowed by what would come.

She had made peace with the discomfort over the last twenty years. What she did, earned her enough money to keep her going for a lifetime. She enjoyed her work and lost days together, immersing herself in it. 

But now, at this point in life, she wasn't expecting it, and honestly thought she wasn't in need of it. But she couldn't refuse it. She had to do it, not for herself, but for her family, who raised her and loved her.

With little time on her hands, she made her choice. With a new found resolve. She decided to have the surgery the next day.

Tomorrow she would see strange things, as a stranger in an unseen world. 

She stilled her shakes. 

She went back to writing. One last time. One last story on her braille keyboard.