A Tribute....

Hi everyone there! This write up may be seen as a tribute from an unknown journalist to one of his (never known) fellow scribe Soumya Vishwanathan, a producer working with Headlines Today. I have never met her in my entire life but she is the one who again rattled my old wounds --- A life of a journalist. Often we journalists are the centre point for criticism from general public for we try an create sensations where there are none. No, its not right. We also want to report about the better things but where are the readers. Sex, crime, sensation...This is all today's reader wants to know. Oops! I think I am going bit philosophical...So I better shut up and concentrate on what I have in my mind. It was a usual evening for me till one of my friend's called me from an outstation assignment saying that Soumya was shot dead. Eh! Who Soumya...was my prompt answer but only to be cut short that the deceased was a producer in the TV channel where my friend worked. "SHE HAS BEEN SHOT DEAD...." Shot dead...the first instinct in me is handling the mouse of my computer to check whether that story has gone or not (I know its inhuman). The friend was weeping inconsolably and it took me few seconds to realise that I have to console her. After exchanging few words of comfort, which were definitely straight from the heart, I switched the TV channel to Headlines Today and saw its reporters covering the incident. Now the question is whether these reporters wanted to work at that time. Where they in a frame of mind to report about the incident about their colleague who was with them barely 24 hours back. The answer is NO because no one wants to do it but still we have to do it.

A chilly winter evening of January 31 while I was talking with my boss in Delhi, I got a call from one of my colleague in Kashmir saying that Parvaz Mohammad Sultan had been killed by terrorists. Parvaz, whom I had met few years before his death, was a loving person. Over the period of years, our friendship had bloomed into a bonding to an extent that we would never sleep without calling each other. I stood like an ice-man when my Kashmir colleague was giving me the shocking news. As I tried to find more about the incident, I was praying in my heart that the information may come wrong or he survives the gun shot wounds. But no, terrorists had fired so many bullets that he had lost the battle to death in his home only. Moreover, the terrorists had come looking for "someone else" and had decided to finish him as he was the best friend of their target. I did not get time to mourn his death properly and my fingers were typing the best of my stories -- A tribute to him while my eyes were wet. I still mourn his . But thanks to Jammu and Kashmir Police and central security agencies, his killers were brought to justice within two months of this incident.

Another such incident was that of Major Pramod Purushottam, the darling of media in terror-struck Kashmir valley. No one had struck that rapo with the media there. It was again an evening of November four of 1999 when I was bust preparing to celebrate the first birthday of niece, a call from my office made me go numb and I could not believe what I was being conveyed. Purushottam's proximity with me was an open secret. So my friends also knew that I will be a shattered one. Forgot the celebrations and here was I driving back to office -- only to be in thick and thin -- A tribute to this brave soldier of Indian Army, who won hearts with his talks and not by bullets. Again no time to mourn...A busy day of a journalist comes to an end...