My Reflections

Today’s TV channels and Telescreen of George Orwell's '1984' Anyone who has not read the novel ‘1984’ may mistake it to be about anti Sikh riot of Delhi. The novel ‘1984’ is in fact a visualization of totalitarian society, a dystopia. It is one of the most famous novels of dystopian genre. This novel is so timeless that what is depicted in the novel holds true for different generations and societies. Though the novel portrays so many facets of an all powerful authoritarian regime, here I am trying to visualize the news studio vis-à-vis the dystopia of ‘1984’. The news channels today act like omnipresent Telescreen of Oceania. The hate session which is conducted for two minutes on the Telescreen of Oceania goes on incessantly 24x7 today. The news channels convert any event which increases the TRP into breaking news and the real breaking news is ignored. The news rooms are converted into war rooms and media trial rooms. The nation wants answer, is repeated...

Saeed Naqvi’s “Being the other: The Muslim in India”  is a partial memoir and partial his account of unfolding events in modern India which he witnessed from close quarters as a journalist. The shilanyas ceremony of 1989 at Ayodhya, the writer says acted as catalyst for writing the book which germinated for six decades.  The book is also an elegy to the syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture of Lucknow and its vicinity which was cultural capital of erstwhile Awadh.  The noted journalist grieves in the introduction of his book, "Rather, it's a chronicle of my growing disillusionment, disappointment, with the direction in which the country is heading". The lucid language is a joy for a reader. The style is adorable and gripping. But the esteemed scholar failed to shed his biases. Only three chapters into the book and one encounters writer’s elitist, sectarian prejudices. The writer quotes Akbar Alahabadi’s couplet. Council mein bahut Syyed Masjid mein faqat Jumma...