JiBhaiya@gmail.com
New Delhi, India
Mohan ji is the Director of the Institute of Management where I worked as a Visiting Reader in Management till July 2010 before I had to quit the job owing to my open heart surgery. The incident that I narrate in this blog happened about two or three years ago.
Mohan ji did not come to the Institute that morning. He phoned the office to inform them that he had to take his aged mother to hospital and would not be coming. I phoned Mohan ji in the evening. ?Arre Yaar?, he told me, ?Mata ji ki gurdan aur kandhe akad gayay tthhay !? (Oh, mate, Mummy had got a frozen neck and shoulders !?)
It seems that his Mummy had sat for 36 hours non-stop glued to the TV set which was showing something live and which was later billed as the media event of the decade in India.
What is a media event ? I am no student of mass media and communication. I have taught, for more than 40 years, in University colleges where advertising, publicity and salesmanship are taught as a field of studies. But I had not heard of mass media and communication till about 15 years ago. I once asked a fellow teacher who was more knowledgeable ?What is this mass media??
He replied with a knowing smile ? ?This is a new thing. You are too old for this !? I said ?Nevertheless, brother, please tell me something about mass media.? He said ?Mass media is the art and science of making news of mass appeal and then profiting by disseminating it effectively.? I said ?Give me an example, please !? Then he gave an example, which I knew since my college days ? ?When dog bites man, it is no news. But when man bites dog, it is big news.?
So, all the cards fell into their right places. I immediately understood what a media event is. It is a media event when an un-invited couple gate-crash into a Z-category security zone to attend a VVIP reception party where Heads of State and Government are being feted. It is a media event when the strap of a celebrity dancer?s upper dress snaps in the middle of her dance causing a ?wardrobe malfunction?. It is a media event when a visiting member of the Royalty makes an unprintable remark about the host country not knowing that a media-man has kept his tape recorder on.
So, what was the media event the TV coverage of which had been so compellingly engrossing that the old lady had not even changed her position while watching TV for 36 hours. The event took place a few hundred kilometers from New Delhi.
A certain small boy, just a toddler aged 5 years or so, had fallen into a 30 feet deep hole in the field dug up to install a tube well and left uncovered carelessly. After the local villagers and the police failed to devise a rescue plan, the Indian Army was called in. The Army engineers and Jawans (soldiers) fought a 36 hour battle against heavy odds and brought out the child safely.
There were nation wide prayers in Hindu temples, mosques, churches and Gurudwaras for the safety of the child. The entire rescue effort was telecast live on TV. When the child was safely brought out by the Army people and handed over to the distraught parents, there was national rejoicing. Crackers and fireworks were set off by the people, who embraced in the streets and distributed sweets.
Prince was the name of the rescued child. Political leaders descended upon the village in large numbers offering gifts such as tricycle, scholarships for studies and promise of life-time financial support to the child and family. But no political leader could grab the attention of the media. The hero that day was PRINCE and Prince alone.
I do not know what happened to Prince later. He has not been mentioned in the media again. Many other children have fallen into tube-well holes since then, some dying and some surviving. While the Indian Army was fighting a difficult battle to save Prince, there were some people who were engaged in laying bets on his survival or otherwise. Bookies were doing roaring business. (Betting is illegal in India).
I wrote a postcard to Mata ji (our Director?s Mummy) praising her for her deep concern for the child and wishing her early relief from her frozen neck and shoulders. It seems I too am getting a frozen neck right now uninterruptedly writing this blog on computer! So, Help Me God !
By (Mr.) Durgesh Kumar Srivastava JiBhaiya@gmail.com New Delhi, India, 23rd September 2010
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