News or Deuce

 

Prescript :

Since I have written this in an Indian Context there might be few phrases and terms you might not be aware of, so check out postscript for an explanation of a few of those terms.

I am the “Tell me everything, Wanna know everything” kinda guy.

Right from my childhood, I was fascinated by newspapers, I always felt like, how do people read everything, there is so much in it!

As a child I didn’t know that skip reading is a thing, all I could think was, only elders can read it because this book is huge and the sadist publishers keep the font small and the page big.

The story goes back to a time when my sister was having boards and I was in fifth (a class when we started to have general knowledge and current affairs as a subject), boards being boards required legit preparation with concentration and parents being parents tried to cut down distractions like TV — Cable.

To justify this strong heartbreaking step to our mild “TV serial” addicts(mom and granny), my dad used to point out the absurdity and low IQ shit that the TV used to feed us.

And me being a kid who idealized his dad, readily gave up cartoons and understood the importance and maturity of the step taken.

There were few relapses, we often got the connection back and after mature discussion, we used to get it removed.

Soon everyone came to the same grounds and even after my sister’s boards, we never had the cable back on.

As I think about those relapses I feel like my social media sobriety voyage was more of what my parents and grandparents went through while getting away from the then “idiotic, addictive information source” which had its pros but cons were strong enough to leave them.

The only thing that bothered us was connectivity with the world, how would we know what is going on in North East West and South (the full form for NEWS popular in my school days) of us, but it was settled by setting up a monogamous relationship with DD suite of channels and newspapers.

It was then concluded that DD news is just like a newspaper, which doesn’t drag a lot of footage over single news and is a medium to give facts that have come into the picture and not the opinions.

This monogamy was very tranquil, I felt committed in this relationship which wasn’t toxic.

She was like the old fashioned but “sanskari bahu” of our house.

But whenever I used to go out, I used to see all other channels which were like modern models wearing hot swimsuits in contrast to my traditional Ghar wali. And the less you get to see something, the more curious you become !

Then I developed this “Ghar wali, Bahar wali” notion, where I used to check out all other news channels without any guilt of cheating and having external affairs (coz literally, there was a lot of external affairs (international) news in other channels🙈).

Things went good until I broke up with both and went to the hostel. Then I made good friends with the newspaper. The newspaper’s ink was toxic but our relationship wasn’t. We glided through very smoothly, me being a loyal silent husband always listened carefully to her all kinds of stories.

But after some time I realized although most of the facts are true, she might be hiding stuff that she doesn’t like and hence I contacted detectives (the then veteran “uncles you meet in trains and buses”) to understand what’s up with the hiding and manipulating of facts that many did!

Usually, the uncles were the loyal husbands who stood by their wives and said: “my wife is the best”(never did an uncle for their real human wives though).

But soon after checking out a lot of ladies from different orientations (some were left-handed, some were right handed, some were ambidextrous and there were a few with no hands as well, they managed to survive on things that I wouldn’t consider as news but eh, there are people who do, so let’s not hurt anyone here by saying “Bollywood masala is not a News you morons” ) and topologies

(some used to live on websites and called themselves blogs/articles, some used to flaunt themselves on huge and small TV screens, some were a bit more modern than TV piñatas and could be spotted living on online platforms like YouTube)I had to come to a concluding ground and swallow a hard pill by accepting news channels as multiple universes coexisting.

Some are full on spiced up worlds, some are calm(very few), some seems to be very logical, some seems to be the worlds which are very near to their Armageddon (where you can see creatures tearing each other up).

Although at times it is easy to declare a world to be flawed on the basis of their absurd rituals, but it becomes really tough to declare one to be perfect.

And hence I accepted their not-so-harmonious coexistence and kept on digging facts from different perspectives.

The thing about perspective, is that you can get convinced easily if you have a open mind but it is tough to dismay from one’s perspective (if what they say and believe in, is possible).

So now, to make things easier for others around me, I don’t develop my own perspective, because my perspective would be based on the different perspectives that I have encountered which might not be in depth or which might not be all that exists in the multiverse.

I can actually conclude some things, but I avoid it, because that would require a lot of in depth analysis, and journalism not being my bread supplier, doesn’t give me enough motivation to leave everything for truth.

So I am open to information but not to debates.

If you ask me about some news, I can give you contrasting views on it and at the same time say, “I don’t know which one’s true”.

Well, that’s the sad truth, and we have to live by it.

This was a post on how I fought the different perspectives presented to me and settled with listening to all, believing in none but understanding it all.

It needs a really mature mind to actually accommodate all the conflicting versions of facts/truth(as they claim) and not get biased to one, JUST because it is being said or supported by someone you admire.

Postscript:

The few things you might know about terms used in Indian Context:

1. Boards are the exams that are a big deal for Indians. It is the first exam that is controlled centrally and its toughness adds on to the results’ authenticity. It happens in 10th standard and 12th standard.
2. Most TV series in India were(specially back in 2000s ) and are very stupid and entertains a lot of low IQ people and contributes further more to their low IQ.
3. DD suit of channels, DD stands for “DoorDarshan”, a government controlled suit of channels which has news, sports and many other dedicated channels broadcasted free of cost.
4. “Sanskari bahu”, “Bahu” means Daughter in Law and “Sanskari” means cultured.
5. “Ghar wali, Bahar wali” notion a phrase for having an affair.
6. “Bollywood Masala” Indian Media dedicates a lot of their time in researching and showing irrelevant facts and rumors about entertainment industry.