When ethics went for a toss

A baby was born to a pair of parents after the mother went through a series of miscarriages. The parents were happy and grateful to the doctor who helped in the process. A private hospital in Guwahati was also involved in the whole exercise.
At a personal level, apparently it is a happy news; may even be exceptional. I hope nobody would doubt that. Having a baby, by all counts, is a personal experience to be shared with friends and relatives. It, however, hardly qualifies as news unless you are a Princess or a celebrity. Nobody would perhaps be interested in Nomal kai becoming a father. Would you like to read it on first person from Nomal in a newspaper that one has to buy paying money?
The first cardinal rule for a something to be news is that it has to be new. Newspapers are deluded with news everyday and all newspapers has a policy (either declared or undeclared) of selecting news. One of the widely accepted thumb rule is that the news has to have relevance to the public. The unwritten ethics in newspapers tell all editor to be on guard against advertisements passing as news. When it happens, we call them paid news.

Now, read this piece in The Assam Tribune under the headline "A New Lease of Life". (I am also placing a downloadable image of the piece at the bottom, in case the internet link becomes inaccessible). The parent was all ga ga abut the private hospital and the doctor involved. He wanted to share it with readers of the newspaper and the newspaper gave him space to do so. Apparently nothing wrong in that; except the fact that para 6.1.1 of the Guidelines of the Medical Council of India says - "A physician shall not make use of him / her (or his / her name) as subject of any form or manner of advertising or publicity through any mode either alone or in conjunction with others...". It also says that the doctor shall not permit the publication of any report to boast of cases, operations, cure or remedies through any mode. If anybody cares to complain, the good doctor may lose her license for being a part of the publicity.
The other issue here is finding "point of public interest" in the piece. The page on which the item appeared also carries 'Obituary'. One can understand the logic of carrying Obituary as a homage to the departed. But, what was so extraordinary in the birth that warranted it to be a news and not an advertisement can best be deciphered by my esteemed readers. Or was it so that an advertisement has actually been passed as a news? If it actually happened in a newspaper like The Assam Tribune, its time to become concerned.

Given a Chance

Vinod Mehta is one of the Editors whom I find largely unpretentious. I was reading the second part of his autobiography called Editor Unplugged and came across one chapter titled What I would do Differently. The title jolted me to sit back and think – yes, given a chance what would I do differently?

Mehta writes that he finds “people who boast they have no regrets in life”, people who would do nothing differently given a chance to live their life all again, rather ‘phoney’ and ‘hypocritical’. I could not agree less. Life is actually a trial and error experiment – one occasionally makes a wrong move and ought to learn from the mistakes. And, one should be ready and candid enough to live life differently, if at all given a chance.

I would turn forty-eight next May, and I think forty-seven is good enough an age to think and write what would I do differently given a chance to live life all over again. There are regrets, and realization of mistakes; there are heartburn and occasional taming of ego. But life, as it is, been generous in all its ups and downs.

So, what would I do differently given a chance? The first in my agenda would be not to take life too seriously by not trying to be a perfectionist. I do not remember who imbibed in me the need to constantly try to improve until perfection. It must be somebody from my childhood. Whoever it was, I realize, he or she was wrong. You need to aim at the sun so that your arrow flies high, but the world it not going to tumble if you do not hit the sun.

A sixteen-year-old girl in my neighborhood, whom I never met, and who was healthy and bubbling with life by all account, died last evening. The only thing she could tell her mother before she died was that she could not feel her body - there was a tingling sensation all over her body and it was over in a matter of few minutes. Given a chance, how would her parents live life differently?

A parallel everywhere

A mail was waiting in my inbox this morning that announced that Sonia Gandhi had distributed appointment letters to 14 persons at Lalganj in Rae Bareli yesterday while inaugurating a railway coach building factory there. These were the people who sold their land to the Indian Railways for setting up the coach building factory; now they are employed in the factory. That reminded me of the ironic story of Surya Bahadur Subba of Lataguri in Garumara National Park.

It was a leisurely drive from the Coronation Bridge at Sevoke to Chalsa on an excellent stretch of the National Highway No. 31 and then through the dense forest of Garumara to Lataguri on a lonely road in that October evening. As I was trying to negotiate my Scorpio at the rather narrow gate of the resort at Lataguri, Subba came to my assistance helping me to reverse my vehicle. He was in his seventies with lines of deep creases on his face, perhaps more pronounced that evening by the golden light from the setting sun. Subba was the night chowkidar at the resort.

Once I parked my vehicle and my wife and son retired to their room, I sat down to have a chat with Subba. It was just evening and there was at least two hours before Subba would take his post. The resort was almost in the middle of a tea garden and one can smell the fresh tea leaves from the windows of the rooms.
Everywhere I go, I make it a point to try and taste the local brew and visit some home of local inhabitants. There is no philosophy behind this, it's just that I find these to be the easiest way of getting a feel of the place and so far this have invariably proved to be helpful.

So, there I was, talking to Subba in an attempt to find out where would  the poison be available. It took me a bit of explaining before Subba's face light up - "ohh! Roxy you want?" Apparently, the name for the local variety of the drink made from jaggery was Roxy. Subba said it would be available in the coolie line in the tea garden but nobody would sell it to me. So, I requested him to accompany me and he agreed. It was about one-and-a-half or so kilometer inside the tea garden where the coolie line was situated and we decided to take my vehicle instead of walking. Roxy was available and waiting to entertain me for rupees twenty a bottle. I wanted to take two - one for me and the other for Subba - but he refused saying he would have to start his night shift soon.

As I was gulping away Roxy on our way back Subba opened up. He was a native of Gangtok, Sikkim. During the Indo-China war in 1962, at the age of seventeen he came to Dooars to work with the Indian Army as a coolie. The War ended but Subba decided to stay back marrying the daughter of a tea garden labourer. For almost three decades after the war, Subba build up his home and a fortune doing odd jobs and supplying materials to the Indian Army who have a strong presence in the area. He bought about five acres of land and brought up two sons and a daughter. The daughter is married off and the wife died a few years ago. Subbas fortune dwindled during the last one decade as age caught  up with him and he lost the physical ability to work. The two sons proved to be more of liabilities than assets, could not do well for themselves and now stays with him; one working at the resort as a helper.

He used to cultivate rice and some cash crops in the five acres of land till the end of the last century or till his body had that capability. The two sons lacking interest in agriculture had decided to try their hands in some odd business only to lose money. In the meantime the sons got married and the five acres of land could no longer support the family which had grown to seven by then. With the rediscovery of Dooars and Gorumara as tourist destinations, resorts started to sprang up in the region creating demand for land. It was then that Subba decided to sell major part of his land to a businessman from Maynaguri who wanted to set up a resort.

The more or less monologue of Subba was disturbed as we reached the resort and he had to get down to help me reverse my vehicle. By this time Roxy had taken over me completely and I was feeling euphoric. Before saying goodnight to Subba I wanted to know where does he live. He pointed to the small thatched house next to the resort. The resort I was staying actually stands on the plot of land that Subba had sold to the businessman from Mayanguri! I think all the Roxy in the world could not have prevented my euphoria from vanishing in realisation that the man had been relegated to a night chowkidar of the resort that sprung up on the land he once owned.

The story in Rae Bareli sound familiar. You can always find a parallel everywhere!

Kabir

We initially named him 'Saikat' - meaning seashore in Assamese. To be honest, I insisted on the name, his mother was not very sure. Someone said, he was born under the sign Libra and his name should start with a 'S'. I wanted his name to be unique, representing part of me and capable of reflecting the moment of his birth - as long as I live or he lives. I felt a deep relief, found a purpose like a ship reaching a shore. I think all first-time father feel more or less the same. So, he was my Saikat.

His mother was not exactly happy with the name and we decided to give him a new name. She suggested 'Kabir' and I found nothing to object because 'Kabir' also adequately reflected my values. His first day at pre-school, the moronic head-mistress exclaimed that she got a Muslim scent in the name. A Muslim name for a Brahmin boy! She had no locus standi and did not go further. I also did not found it necessary to enlighten that outright stupid that Kabir, the 15th Century philosopher was the first true secular preacher who might have rolled in his grave that moment. Since then, I have faced curious glance from many people at the mention of his name several time till today but preferred to ignore them.

For seven years Kabir is growing with lots of love in his heart. He do not have a best friend - the whole class is his best friends. We have consciously made efforts never to asked him a very common but uncomfortable question for any child as to whom does he love more - me or his mother. He has grown up to be a happy child who loves daydreaming. When his first puppy died of ailments within 11 days of bringing it home, we took great pain not to put him face-to-face with death. Instead we told him that the puppy had been shifted to a dog hospital. He had doubt and kept on asking about the puppy for three months until I found another almost identical one and lied to him that it was the first one that have come back from hospital recovered. For seven years, we have shielded him from hatred until I had to teach him last week.

His school was collecting relief materials for the people in the camps in Kokrajhar districts. He came home excited with lot of unanswered questions. Why people do not have houses, why they do not have food to eat, why people are fighting, why people killed other people. And then he sprang the bolt from the blue and asked me what does "mein tumse badla lunga" means. It was one of those conversations in Hindi that he did not understood but picked up to ask me for meaning. I tried to explain what 'badla' means but could not quite make him understand. He did not pressed, and I was relieved. Someday he will learn, as you will teach him. But, I hope he will grow up as Kabir.

(People calling for banning Jism2 should think about fanatics. For both are capable of corrupting young minds)

  

2012

In a span of 24 hours 39 people have wished me well for a whole 366 days (this is a leap year, if you remember). That’s a load of wishes, I guess; and from a lot of people. When you are young, you generally have a lot of friends. It is also a general rule that, as you grow old the number dwindles. By the time you are forty-four like me, you have very few left. Having 29 people to wish you happiness, prosperity and wellbeing is an achievement at my age.
I ought to be happy, yet I could not be. Because I know, not a single one of these people actually care for me. While for some I am a compulsion, for others I am just another number in their mobile devices or the e-mail address book. There were two exceptions though – they called me and wished me a happy new year. For a long time to come I will remember them even if their calling was actually accidental or incidental. Sometimes, you need excuses to be happy.
In contrast, Kabir is happy always. He loves everyone and everything. He does not know to fight, not even know to stand up for himself. As a corollary to not knowing to fight, he does not know to hate. I think he is in serious disadvantage for not knowing to fight. A man who cannot stand up for himself seldom can stand up for anything.
Unfortunately, as he will grow up and the pretensions that make the world a stage will fall apart; as the people that he now puts in a pedestal will fall like shooting stars; as the things he love so dearly now will be swept away by the current of time, the number of things and people that he dies for will gradually shrink. By the time he will be of my age, there will be very few of them left.
In my case, there is only one left.

Q

What is the word that first comes to your mind when asked to spell out a word starting with 'Q'?

Its 'Queen'; right? Yes, that's pretty obvious as since the day we started to learn the alphabets, we were taught that 'Q' is for Queen just as the way 'A' is for Apple. We think it would difficult to teach our youngsters any other word that they are not familiar with. Queen is such a common and gorgeous word with hundreds of years of our history and volumes of our literature replete with stories of great Kings and Queens. We are so fond of the word that nothing, not even more than 60 years of democracy and abolition of kingdoms, can make us believe that there may be other more familiar word for our children.
Or do we do it on a purpose? Is it that we still believe that we have a king and a queen? If not a king, at least a queen and her prince and princess! If not, then we need to find a new word that starts with a 'Q' to teach our children.

People living in the hinterland along the Indo-Myanmar border may actually say that the first word starting with Q that comes to their mind is 'Quinine'. Natural, because they live with malaria which is endemic in the entire Indo-Myanmar border in the Indian side. And they are treated with 'Quinine' even today. But, malaria and quinine may be a difficult word for the children of the mainland.

For some others, still shaken by the recent quake in the northern & north-eastern part of India may find 'quake' an easy word to remember. Quake would not be a difficult word to teach. You may find it very hard to show your children a real life example of queen, but given the geo-physical condition of our sub-continent, you may well get a chance to show them what quake is in reality.

What about qualification? Would it be a word too long? Okey then, what about quality? Oh! I forgot. It is such a rare thing these days! You may not be able to teach your children the meaning of the word with example. Then let us settle for 'quack'. No, not the sound that Donald Duck makes, but the name of the people whom we regularly kill in Assam suspecting them to be capable of doing witchcraft.
No? That would be too gruesome? But, we keep on killing them because of our superstitions! And many people of our country actually get treatment from these people as they find no qualified medical practitioners available in rural areas. Proper health care comes at a price. If you cannot pay, you go to quack! Simple.

Al right! What about 'Queue'? Yes, queue, meaning a line of people, cars etc. waiting for something or to do something. I think that would be a good word to start with as most of us have already lost the habit and forgot the meaning of the word. We are, in fact, more conversant with 'jumping the queue'. Let us, at least, teach our children the meaning of the word and the importance it it in our life so that we can become civilized. Or, are you not sure again that you can show a real life example?

Privacy

Omar is hurt. India is showing too much of interest in his private life. He is not naughty, but people are calling him naughty at forty. Tharoor was equally hurt. So was Amir, and Azharuddin, and Gutta, and Saif. Tata also have complaints of people invading his private life. At this point, I am rewriting a story, least I forget it. In circa 2005, there lived a petite small young woman named Gudiya in a tiny village in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh. Her husband, Arif, served the country as a soldier and was sent to Kargil as a sacrificial lamb. He disappered behind the veil of war and Gudiya was alone again. Five long years had passed. Everybody, including Gudiya, presumed Arif dead. More than 1500 lonely nights devoid of bodily heat had convinced Gudiya to marry again. So, she was wife again. This time of Taufeeq. The story became interesting when suddenly, as she was eight months pregnant, her soldier husband Arif, presumed dead, returned after he was released from a Pakistan prison. What happened after that would be very difficult to forget. The whole country had given opinion on what Gudiya needs to do, may be she did not asked for it. For weeks after weeks media debated future of Gudiya and postmortemed her past. Nobody asked her if she was hurt. And, finally Gudiya decided to remarry her first husband. Arif agreed to take the child as his own and nobody bothered about Taufeeq. After that India forgot Gudiya. [This part of the story is for you and the next generation] Gudiya gave birth to the child fathered by Taufeeq and soon become pregnant again. This time the father was Arif. But, the child was stillborn and Gudiya developed complications. Eventually, she died of septicemia on New Year's day of 2006. It is more than five years now. Nobody knows what happened to Arif, Taufeeq or the child they share between them. Fortunately, Tharoor, Amir, Saif, Omar, Tata and Azharuddin never felt hurt about Gudiya. And thankfully, Gudiya is dead.

Suren Medhi is dead

"Shri Suren Medhi, retired teacher of Assam Engineering College and a writer by passion passed away in the morning of 25th June 2011 (Saturday)after a brief illness. He was the son of late Kaliram Medhi, who was one of the founders of Asom Sahitya Sabha, and a well-known writer who preferred to write under a pen name. Throughout his life he believed that it was the work of a writer that the readers should be acquainted with and not the writer or his personal life and therefore worked very hard not to be identified. He left behind his wife and a daughter and host of other relatives".

This is possibly how Suren Medhi would have liked the news of his death to be covered by media. Today, while reading the host of write-ups on Saurabh Kumar Chaliha by almost all the who's who in the literary and social life of Assam and by some well-meaning, die-hard fans of the writer,I realized nobody actually respected him or his soul.
A man had painfully tried to remain anonymous throughout his life despite having the scope of busking in glory. It was his choice and not an easy one for him. He had been hounded several times to be exposed not because the excellent writings that he produced need a face but because exposing him would have been a great expose - a win against him and his soul. People wanted to know about him because he was such a great writer. But, what about the respect for his ideal - the philosophy of remaining faceless and living in his writings?
As if all of us were waiting for him to die. The moment he is dead, we all have forgotten the essence of his philosophy for which he lived - and died. The newspapers today were spread with photos, stories, memoirs and write-ups about how great he was; about how close he was to the writers; about what were the secrets of Saurabh Kumar Chaliha; about intricate details of his life and time. I am not doubting the intentions - all of them genuinely felt the loss, all of them are 100% genuine admirer of Saurabh Kumar Chaliha and all of them wanted to immortalize him.But in doing so, a unannounced competition on who can churn out the best collectors item has broken out. And thus, we have killed Saurabh Kumar Chaliha twice - his persona and his soul.

Wine & weight

I discovered a small, about two by seven inches, silverfish-eaten piece of paper carrying a few line of scribblings in my hand as I was sorting out old, accumulated assortment of documents and newspaper clippings from a cupboard attacked by white ants today. I could not make out the age of the piece as there was no date mentioned on it, but circumstantial evidences like the company of the documents this piece of paper had been keeping gave me an idea that it should not be less than 10 years old. The other circumstantial evidence was an email address at the back of the piece ostensibly in the handwriting of my brother. The last time he was staying with me long enough to be able to litter the house with small, apparently meaningless scribblings on almost all my documents was more than ten years ago.
Today, I want to share here the few lines found on that ten years old piece of paper which possibly my son will find useful ten years from now.

" North European ships were measured by the number of wine casks they could carry. These casks were called Tuns.
Today, ships are still measured in Tons. This is because the English authorities fixed the size of Tun at 252 Gallons of wine, the weight of which was 2,240 lb (that equals 1,016 kgs)."

When Credibility is Put to Test - final part

This the 3rd and final part of the article on Public Relations published in The Eastern Chronicle.
A better resolution image is available here.

First part of the article.

Second part of the article.

The future of Public Relations education

(This article was published in The Assam Tribune today on the ocassion of National Public Relations Day. The newspaper edited and left out two very relevant paragraphs. So, I am posting the full article here.)


The present educational scenario in our country marks the decline of popularity of traditional knowledge-oriented social science subjects like economics, history and political science in one hand and the rise of industry-oriented so-called professional or job-oriented subjects like mass communication, journalism, public relations, advertising and tourism etc. While institutes imparting education in these increasingly popular courses have mushroomed, the quality of education these institutes impart needs closer examination and review.
The primary goal of any industry-oriented course is to develop and produce trained and skilled human resources for the industry. The success of such a course in this direction depends primarily on two factors – the curriculum adopted and the teaching imparted. For the success of any professional course of education, the curriculum should reflect the current development in the industry and the teaching should fulfill the actual need of the trained manpower in the industry. To whatever extent the course offered by any institute in these fields may be hyped up, the institute’s efficacy is certified by the product churned out by the institute. To be able to produce suitable manpower for industry, the industry-related academic courses should be designed and reviewed keeping in mind the need of the industry in real time. The question that exercises our minds however is - whether the available professional courses in the northeastern region have been able to fulfill these two prerequisites or not? So, before enrolling into any professional course in any institute, one should clearly understand the details of the curriculum offered and its relevance vis-à-vis the industry it serves as well as the capabilities of the faculty imparting such education.
The rapid growth of print and electronic media during the last two decades in our country has created a vast demand for trained manpower in the field of Mass Communication and Journalism. Considering the fact that the media industry is estimated to grow at about 15% in the next few years, the demand is likely to increase. The other profession that has attained much attention, during the same period is Public Relations. Though person like Niira Radia has unintentionally made it infamous, the profession has managed to stay in the headlines mainly due to the increasing realization of the power of public relations in emerging market-driven economy like India’s. The industry will require a large number of communicators – be it journalists or public relations professionals – in the coming days to avoid conflicts and to sustain the projected growth rate of 8% for the economy. In such a scenario, it becomes the combined responsibility of both academics and the industry to ensure that the professional trained in academic institutions are tailored to the actual need of the industry.
In most of the academic institutes and universities in India including the four universities in Assam that imparts training and teaching in Mass Communication has included public relations as a small part of the overall curriculum of Mass Communication and Journalism. As such, more detailed and less comprehensive issues like ethics in public relations and role of social media for public relations had been left out of the syllabus although these two are topics are poised to be major issues that are going to shape the future of public relations worldwide.
In fact, one of the major controversies exercising mind of academic administrators and policy makers, journalists, public relations practitioners and mass communication teachers around the world in the last decade is - whether Public Relations is to be retained as a part of journalism and therefore, should remain in academic curriculum of Mass Communication; or Public Relations has grown up as a strategic management tool and therefore be included in curriculum of Business Schools. Opinions on the topic are divided into two distinct camps – both keeping professional ethics at the centre of their arguments. While David Gordon argues that public relations and journalism will both benefit when they are taught in the same school or department, and ethics in both field have no relationship to this issue, John Michael Kitross argues that teaching public relations and journalism in the same department is detrimental to the ethics of both fields.
Another interesting metamorphosis going on the academic field of public relations education and training is the emphasis increasingly laid by hard-core management professionals trained by business schools on the use of public relations and social media solely as cost-effective marketing tools. These professionals argue that ethics of public relations, that of honest and total communication with intention of trust building, is nothing but a legacy of the days of Ivy Lee. Since, public relations is capable of influencing people’s decision and thereby increase sales, there are no qualms of ethics involved. They often advocate equating corporate communications, lobbying, publicity and propaganda with public relations.
New–age social media marketing experts like Gary Goldhammer, a former journalist and New York-based digital media marketing communications specialists, even goes to the extremity of proposing disbanding public relations professional associations like the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) terming it as legacy organization outliving its utility loosing relevance to present society. Gary says, people hardly care about the differences between marketing and public relations; for the masses they are the same, it is only the professionals who make a distinction between the two. The number of people like Gary who use social media like Facebook for marketing is increasing and their views are gaining ground. They argue that PRSA code of ethics regarding honesty and integrity in communication for building trust and understanding for an organization is outdated in today’s market-driven world. On the other hand, professional public relations bodies like PRSA do not support the overwhelming classification of public relations exclusively as a marketing or propaganda tool.
Goldhammer-kind professionals eager to establish their supremacy over social media as marketing tools are going to outnumber public relations professionals in our country soon. These marketing professionals in the industry and the business school mandarins claim that public relations is a specialized communication technique and like other aspects of business, communications management should also be left to managers; and therefore should be taught in a business school to the ‘would be’ managers. The Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata has recently announced a course in business communication which actually aims at imparting public relations knowledge and skills to the participants. Other business schools too include course in communication for business which provides the first insight into the field of public relations.
These developments, however, seems to have caught the academicians and professional bodies like the Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) unaware. Interestingly, PRSI announces in its website that it “was established in 1958 to promote the recognition of public relations as a profession and to formulate and interpret to the public the objectives and the potentialities of public relations as a strategic management function”. The PRSI has promotions of public relations education as one of its primary objectives, but nothing significant has come out of it so far (at least not in this part of the country). It is unfortunate that after more than 50 years of existence of PRSI, as people without any professional qualification dictates the role of public relations, the professionals in the field still has to fight for recognition for a meaningful role in any organization.
Public Relations professional world over believes that public relations has much more to it than mere marketing, publicity, propaganda or advertising. As mass communication gained its stature as medium of influence in democracies over the world, the public relations too grew as a very strong tool of public advocacy and opinion engineering. The added cost advantage of public relations as a marketing tool against advertising has made the profession a field vied for by professional from diverse fields. Thus, what once was a field for former journalists or mass communication specialists has now become equally available for marketing, brand-building, customer-service, sales and social media specialists.
Now everybody wants a piece of the pie. The situation has been further been aggravated by the absence of a universally accepted definition of public relations. The profession is defined by the practitioners as they practice it. The absence of a mandatory registration process like that of legal advocacy or medicine also has confounded the problem of lack of cohesive views among the professional in the field. It is high time that public relations professionals under the aegis of bodies like PRSI take note of these. Otherwise, the day would be near when views demanding disbanding of PRSI or propagating irrelevance of PRSI would be aired in our country too. And mass communicators will have to watch from the stands while professional managers will manage public relations like any other aspects of business.

When Credibility is Put to Test - II

(This is the second part of my article in The Eastern Chronicle published today on the occasion of National Public Relations Day. See page-10, i.e. Business Chronicle of the newspaper for a slightly better resolution image.)

You can read the 1st part of the article here.

The 3rd and final part of the article is available here.

When Credibility is Put to Test - Part I

This is the first part of an article published in The Eastern Chronicle, published from Guwahati today.

For a better resolution picture go to Business Chronicle page in The Eastern Chronicle.

The 2nd part of the article is available here.

The 3rd and final part of the article is available here.