A Dying Man Will

Gasping for breath or clutching at straws, he will do anything to survive. Similar to him are India's billion-plus souls, stretching their rupee to somehow endure

- RAJEEV NARAYAN

The animal who calls himself a journalist is a rabid one, for he finds succour in disaster and headlines in tragedy. This animal seldom uses his eyes, rarely taxes his heart muscles and never bothers to use his senses or brain. In the process, this torch-bearer of the Fourth Estate; the self-ordained guardian of the people's voice and mouthpiece of the masses; ends up being a lapdog of the watchdogs. This upper-echelon canine pocket-wimp - after years of being tonsured by the watchdogs' largesse - develops a skin tough as steel, thick enough to repel the pin-pricks of the vestiges of his flickering conscience.

When things smelly hit the fan, this doggie doo doesn't reach for his pen, but for a brush; to paint up a masterpiece that captures the stench of the nation's putrefaction on a real canvas that somehow remains blank. For the lapdog is blank, the putrefaction real. I could go on, waxing eloquent on the many other virtues of this forsaken puppet, but that would be a waste of newsprint.

What needs to be written is what our journalist pocket puppies will not; the plight of a majority of Indians today. A smattering of reversals plagues the nation; be it unemployment, caste and religionbased unrest, rising intolerance, communal fervour, changing weather patterns and their debilitating impact, global condemnation of some of our policies, a stuttering economy, and more. But the very real thwack every Indian, rich or poor, is facing is price rise - runaway inflation that seems to have laid its roots deep into the inner core of mere desh ki dharti. Inflation.

So bad that I have never seen anything quite like this.