Nepal in the News

It’s interesting how television news channels covered the recent earthquake in Nepal.

More or less the same pictures were telecast over the first few hours/days. (The photographers must have vied for great positions, no doubt, but the massive disarray might not have allowed them much movement.)  Yet each news-gatherer hyperventilated like s/he had had a ‘eureka’ moment.

“Look at this” one reporter cried over and over again. I dashed from kitchen to telly, to see what s/he was showing, changed the channel, and found the other reporter saying the same thing, “look at this”. The visual seemed nearly the same as the previous one.

“Looking, looking,” I said to the screen and worked the remote again.  Turned out that every reporter on every channel had run out of words. They depended on the cameraperson’s point of view, literally, and told i-box devotees to “look at this, look at this”. They (reporters, not cameramen, not viewers) should take lessons from All India Radio’s sports commentators. Tell in detail and at great speed is their mantra. Their very-rapid descriptions of the travails of hockey and cricket balls have been perfected over decades.

Channel-wise, even the questions asked to the ‘common’ man/woman/child were the same. “Have you got water?” “Haven’t you got water?” “How long haven’t you got water?” “Who else doesn’t have water?” “Do you think the government has made adequate arrangements for water?” Which government? They’d forgotten they were on foreign soil.

(I was waiting for at least one person to say ‘I’m not common’ or ‘could I have some of the water from your quota?’ No one asked. If someone did, it wasn’t telecast.)

Ditto questions by reporters for getting out of the country: “Do you know when you’ll be flown out?” “Don’t you know when you’ll get flown out?” “Who else hasn’t got flown out?” “What has been done for you?” “What do you think the government should do?” I think these youngsters are taught to ask the last question compulsorily.

(Imagine this scene: “What’s your name?” “Bhiknna Bhazoon Kha.” “Has the government done anything about it?”)

TV news-channel motto one is ‘badger the government’. Motto two is, tell the government what to do.  

One correspondent expertly commented directly to the camera-lens that the government should “… send buses to xyz place… so that… people can be saved”.

Channels should make use of such talent. These professionals should confront NGOs nosing around to promote spirituality and happiness whether they’d mind helping out with disposal of garbage and stinky putrefying matter.

If channels had pooled resources, would the money saved have been contributed for medicines, shelters, clothes? Just speculating, no jibe intended.

The competition for ‘we showed first’ spilled over from the studio to ‘ground zeros’. (One channel mentioned only ‘ground zero’, forgetting to mention just where it was.)  

Visuals were very good. Those actively involved in rescue-work showed remarkable composure when distracted to give interviews. Their body-language indicated ‘we’re racing against time, saving lives’, but they gave courteous replies.

One ticker read ‘Army docs were ‘embedded’ in Nepal hospitals.’ I’m sure the meaning and usage is correct. My English lacks something.

An observation: not a single uniformed person said “see how brave I am, we are”. They did their jobs without patting their own backs or waiting for someone else to. The Armed Forces have my warmest regards.

No channel, till the time I’ve written this, mentioned our own Gorkha jawans serving the Indian Army. They’re from Nepal. Field Marshal Maneckshaw said, ‘if a man says he doesn’t know fear, he’s either a Gorkha, or he’s lying’. This community has a proud two-hundred old martial history that the British have acknowledged. The Indian Army has reason to be proud of them even today. They and their families have lost a lot in this earthquake.

Senior editor, M J Akbar, an earthquake ‘victim’ (over-&-often-wrongly-used word), in his description of the experience wrote: “Cynicism maybe our default position, but… Every Indian reached out to others…Indians became the envy of other nationals as news came that our air force would land… One fact above others made my heart swell… there were no VIPs in the rescue process. Only one special category: mothers with small children. Everyone else… first-come-first-service basis. Every Indian was an equal. Every Indian would find a place.”

Some writers (as in professionals, not casual ‘posters’) wrote on facebook that a woman teacher from Bangalore, a PIO with a British passport, was denied place in an aircraft. One said: “Why can’t our officials treat all humans alike?” That post irked me. I wish the channels would highlight Akbar’s POV.

Most of all, I wonder what trauma the Nepali waiters, cooks, cleaners and guards, those dependable ‘bahadurs’ all over the country are going through. They have served us silently, loyally, their meagre salaries burning the choolas in their homes in the now devastated mountain villages. No channels have covered their grief. Yet.  

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in