Stung by the camera

Even at the best of times, am no admirer of kamikaze-style television journalism, having seen at disgustingly close quarters the near-cannibalism of some members of this tribe. If you have ever seen a chirpy young, brilliant-smile-in-place teevee anchor ad lib her piece into the camera minutes after she has tried, in vain, to grab a `byte' from a mother who has just buried the bloated corpse of her child with her own hands, then you too would know what I mean. Am speaking of post-tsunami Nagapattinam and have no intention of sounding holier-than-thou. You've gotta been there, is all I can say. It needed Times Now TV's Dhanya Rajendran to change that perception. It needed her kind of guts, presence of mind and sensitivity to try and crack the web of nepotism and cheapstaking that one of the oldest universities in the country seems to have fallen prey to. Where others where thrusting cameras through bedroom keyholes, DR dared to turn it on to an issue that involved the future of lakhs of students. Not that the varsity suffered a major shake-up after this. If anything, the wheeling-dealing seems to have only gone underground and more acrimonious. The behemoth bungles on. But then, in the likes of Dhanya rests the future of teevee journalism. And I have never felt prouder in calling anybody `friend' than I do her. Her stunner may not have created the kind of ripples that one would legitimately expect it to: had this been, say, the Delhi University or even a third-rung north Indian university, then hell-breaking-loose would have sounded quite mild. Despite a high-level DVAC probe and two employees in the slammer, Dhanya's painstaking work seems not to have made it to the big league yet. All the more is the pity. But then, she's still around...

Does getting hate mail mean....

...you have arrived? If so, then friends, fellow-bloggers and all ye those who have cared to stop by in the past few months since I stumbled onto the infinitesmous blogosphere: ergo, yours truly is truly here and how! A particular gent (why am I so sure it is a gent? I simply know, that's all) seems to have been so comprehensively offended by my post on Kushboo and the moral police that he has been shaken and stirred enough to fill my comment box with spite-posts at regular intervals. And he seems to have inspired a couple of others too--or is it him doing the Anniyan-thing? Have never really believed in comment moderation on a blog but the venom and gross savagery in those posts has pushed me into doing something I intensely dislike. Would like to know of any other such experiences. Quo vadis?