Stinking Creek

Believe it or not, there is a town called “Duck”. There is a town called “Toad Suck”. There is a town called “Why”. There is a town called “Santa Claus”. And there are many more. And there is a town called “Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein” and there is also “Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu” which happens to be the longest name for a town in the world. And then, there is a town called “Malice” (a famous song) which doesn’t exist on any map but it’s a tiny street township in Poland. But the biggest town of fraud, malice, sex maniacs, extortionists is in the world of our Fiberals – media, Bollywood, Lutyens, politics. And I call them the Stinking Creek. Creek – because they are the narrowest stretch of immoral humans.

Lately, dozens of sex perverts have been tumbling out of their cupboards. Those who claimed to be champions of women’s Rights, freedoms, choices and feminism are turning out to be the biggest exploiters of women. It all started with one woman talking about experiences with AIB (a comic group called AllIndiaBakchodi) which has now turned into an avalanche. These sex perverts peddled the most vulgar comedy it seems. I don’t have a problem with vulgar comedy, there are audiences for everything in the world. People choose what they want to watch. But seems it didn’t stop there, the founders of the AIB and some members started “sexploiting” innocent young girls and women. This is straight out of an American prostitution-mafia in a relatively softer manner. The AIB founders have since quit and issued a statement too:

 

This AIB is just the tip of the iceberg. I have not only been associated in some form in the past with the news media but I have observed the behaviour of the topmost managers at various times. From editors to senior journalists, there are many who are predators. If Bollywood has a “Casting Couch”, the media has one too. And don’t exclude the advertising industry from the media because the term “media” originally referred to the advertising industry and then came to encompass all other associated industries. Every major media house is filled with sex perverts. The latest one to bite the dust is Prashant Jha of Hindustan Times:

Prashant Jha is reported to have sexually harassed a reporter called Avantika Mehta. In September, Tanushree Dutta, a former Bollywood average actress came up with allegations against film personalities Vivek Agnihotri and Nana Patekar. Surprisingly, her last movie was in 2010 and the incidents she claimed seem to have happened around 2008 during the shooting of some movie. Apparently, she came all the way to India from the US, where she now stays, to make these disclosures. Naturally, everyone has to wonder why now. After such a long time, it would neither be easy to believe her nor would it be possible to prosecute anyone for it. She went on a media-yatra blabbering on all TV channels about how she was harassed. Her main target was Agnihotri who has recently achieved some prominence with his “Urban Naxal” stories. After much goading and ridicule, Dutta finally filed a FIR against Patekar. From his side, Patekar too seems to have sent some legal notice for defamation to her.

When the incidents that Tanushree claims to have happened, she did nothing. Why? Because she was in business and did not want to risk it. It is only about a decade later and out of business, that “honour” seems to have sprung a leak and popped up in her face. Many of the women in media (that includes news media, Bollywood and advertising industry) gladly suffer nonsense from some men when they are busy seeking money, glamour and popularity. When the shine goes off, it seems they are left with a guilt of what they should not have done. Take a look at this pervert Siddharth Bhatia. He is another of those vile beasts that lecture people on how and why male perverts should be treated as good as rapists. He tweeted his sermon on October 6 and one day later, it turns out he is one of those “Dark underbelly” beasts too:

When the Tarun Tejpal incident happened, most of his media friends were slyly defending him and trashing his victim. In the case of that Nobel prize winner, RK Pachauri, too the media did their best to cover up his crimes. It was a brave woman that could take on the might of RK Pachauri. These perverts and flesh-eaters abound in every media house and in every Lutyens outfit. And many in the media are bed-mates of politicians in return for a juicy story or gossip or leaks or favours for loans, houses, vehicles and so on.

Some years back, Sunetra Chaudhary of NDTV narrated an incident of sexual harassment with a politician. She even wrote a whole article in DNA about this “Pervy Politician”. It ended there. Neither she nor NDTV wanted to expose the politician and make him pay a price. But what exactly is the PRICE? The price is a troubled NDTV struggling to survive and wants to survive no matter what – even if your employee’s honour is treated like one of an “available escort”. You see, the lipstick, glamour and all the shine of a public life lures many a girl and woman into these dark alleys and they don’t mind being gently “sexploited” if it gets them more money and fame. Conscience seems to strike only when they encounter failure and don’t reach the dizzying heights they aimed for. In every party that the media houses throw, there is always someone who is gently fondling or molesting some woman in a shady corner or in a corridor. Getting drunk or getting high on drugs is not unusual at these parties.

This is the “Liberal life” as they claim – “My life, My rules” and what not. And then there are those daring women like Deepika Padukone who scream (when reported about excessively revealing cleavage) “I have breasts and a cleavage; do you have a problem”? Well it would be sort of unusual if a woman did not have breasts and a cleavage. When this kind of assertion comes from a celebrity, many young girls take it as sign that showing their breasts and cleavage in public is a sign of liberation and assertion of their freedoms.

What happens is, most of these youngsters don’t make it to the top like Deepika but they get exploited by sex perverts in the media or entertainment businesses. Deepika Padukone can get away even if she bares her breasts. The media would applaud it as great courage. But when newbies and young girls enamoured by such acts try it, they fall victim to the predators. Such men see a little bit of cleavage or revealing clothing as a signboard saying “I am available, if you have the guts”. So, they get macho and try to exploit such women.

Take the case of actor Sanjay Dutt. It seems his recent biopic revealed that he had bedded over 300 women. That would probably have been before he was sent to jail. Considering he was around age 45 or so at that time and from around age 17 to 45 is 28 years, that makes an average of over 10 new women he had sex with every single year. There is a psychological lure even with women to seek the poison from men who seemed daring and extremely liberal on this. If I sound too far-fetched, you should look up on how women sought attention from MK Gandhi.

 

For a long time, the sexual escapades and experiments of Gandhi were brushed under the carpet. Most of it remained hush-hush. Why? It has become a culture right from Gandhi down to the next guy in media – The one in supreme authority can have all the women he wants for all the experiments and adventures he wants. I see absolutely nothing spiritual about MKG’s experiments of “Brahmacharya”. Why is it that MKG can get away by using women as “Guinea pigs” for his sexual experiments? Why doesn’t the media or politicians call it like it is? For the same reason Tejpal claimed “Penance” as the solution to his sexcapade.

Take a good look at all the media men from Prashant Jha to Siddharth Bhatia to Tarun Tejpal or any other editor. If you dig deep enough, you may end up finding almost all of them are natural perverts. Shekhar Gupta, the wheeler-dealer of Lutyens and the current Head of that useless organisation called Editors Guild has absolutely nothing to say about all these incidents involving his peers. Nothing! Instead, he wants to ridicule Sabari Malai Ayappa temple with menstruating-women tweets. There is not one single major media house that does not have many sex perverts. There is not one major media house that does not exploit women. In many cases the women too have been willing accomplices or partners. The whole thing stinks. The reason being, journalism requires the least amount of talent and skill. And anyone with a little bit of flair and good looks is preferred and becomes a victim. And all of them stink to high hell.

And yes, there is indeed a town called Stinking Creek. It got its name owing to the naturally bad odour from the stream around it from sulphur springs. I find it quite appropriate for our media that stinks to high hell which has become nature to it.

Sunetra Choudhury & NDTV's Honour

In January 2011 NDTV carried a recruitment ad in newspapers - Train with the best. The line below the picture reads: "Train with those who have made the news for 22 years. Enroll as an apprentice with the NDTV Broadcast Training Programme."

Train with the best! The more I think of that line it makes me laugh and wonder if there are any journalistic principles left at NDTV at all. What does one say of a TV channel one of whose prominent journalists goes around writing articles in some newspaper grieving over her experience at the hands of a UPA politician who seems to have insulted her modesty with sexual comments.  I am not one to dictate what NDTV should report but ideally a report on the issue should have read like this from NDTV itself:

“NDTV is shocked to report the behaviour of UPA’s Mr. Perv who had the audacity to insult the modesty of one its female journalists with sexual comments. We consider this behaviour outrageous and have filed a complaint with the NCW and the Ministry of I&B and have demanded strong action. We choose not to disclose the name of the journalist to protect her privacy and self-respect but will not rest till this politician is arrested and prosecuted. We would like viewers to know that this politician has a history of such behaviour and it’s time to put such people out of business”. But sorry, that was never heard on that channel.

Instead, Sunetra Choudhury, the NDTV journalist involved in the incident had to write an article in DNA (July 10) newspaper about her plight called  “Pervy Politician needs to get his act together”. One can sympathise with her plight but once again it is the victim whose identity is in the open while the offender remains shrouded in secrecy and open to guess work. Not that it requires too much of smart guess work either. Prior to the DNA article she had already tweeted about her long wait to meet this politician and how the babus around were busy watching Rakhee Sawant on TV. The article received some tweets and comments in response and Choudhury went on leave. But here’s an interesting excerpt from her article:

“Now, unlike many other journalists, I am not on back-slapping terms with any politician, least of all this one. I had heard that this one liked the ladies, but had never experienced his glad eye. I don’t know whether I was too focussed on getting my interview, or whether I was so relieved that I wouldn’t have to hear my editor banging on about not getting it, that I actually laughed at this comment, noticing in the midst of this giggle, that my colleague’s eyebrows had touched his receding hairline. I got my interview and was also regaled by the pervy politician’s other stories — how he would go to an unsavoury politician’s party because he got lots of women to show their legs and cleavage, how some woman danced the kamasutra dance for him and other lascivious tales…”

I have to assume that Barkha Dutt, as group editor of NDTV, would be Sunetra’s boss. Sort of explains the relief she talks about. Next, read the line closely where she says “unlike many other journalists, I am not on back-slapping terms with any politician”. There’s your probable reason why neither NDTV nor any other prominent journalist has stood up for her or backed her to have the culprit named and punished. I have good reason to believe that the line also talks about journalistic culture at NDTV since Sunetra would clearly know more about the equations of her own peers at NDTV with politicians rather than other journalists at other channels. I am sure if Sunetra reads this line of hers again she will realise she has unwittingly exposed most media celebrities and the doctored news they peddle or how they crawl up to their political bosses. Her article seems to contain a few hints that could identify the offender.

She further writes about another colleague of hers:  “Isn’t that why my colleague was stalked with text messages from a cabinet minister and still felt hesitant to complain?” And yes, in case you forgot NDTV’s tagline, it is “Experience Truth, first”

In contrast Sunetra’s boss, Barkha, couldn’t stomach even strong and fair criticism by a blogger. (“Shoddy Journalism” by Chaitanya Kunte on Barkha Dutt’s 26/11 coverage). NDTV initiated legal action against the blogger to pull that article and render an apology. Again, when Radiagate broke with Barkha Dutt accused of involvement in power-broking she and NDTV threatened “appropriate action” against Manu Joseph’s Open magazine. Ever since it has been downhill for NDTV and I am surprised this channel even survives. I believe any other journalist in Barkha’s place would have been fired. Train with the best! Indeed!

People were just about starting to get past the incident when Sunetra Choudhury put out another article after two weeks in DNA (July 24). This time it is some sort of justification for “Why I did not name ‘Mr Pervy Politician”. But though she’s a victim the points in her second article make sorry reading. She may have had many responses from people but her justification seems somewhat unjustified. Here are some points she makes:

“I realised from the overwhelming response how it wasn’t about me but about lakhs of people who form half of our workforce…” For a start, I don’t think many of those lakhs of people are really in as powerful a position as a journalist from a TV channel is. I doubt DNA or any other newspaper would give those people an inch to write about their experience.  I am a bit surprised Sunetra cannot see this difference. There is a reason those lakhs of people are expecting a different response from her.

“I didn’t know how to tell all of them that this ‘Pervy Politician’ was just one of the many I had encountered, and so I felt it was a bit unfair that I should out just him. I didn’t know how to tell them that some of the others had been much worse, and I was lucky that I didn’t feel too scarred by any of them, but I knew many women who probably were, and didn’t have the space to express themselves..” That doesn’t seem to be sound logic. That it would be unfair to previous offenders she had encountered if she had outed this man. Go ahead, out them all. Furthermore, it hardly does anything for the many other women who she implies were ‘scarred’ by such experiences. And the worst part is, it also clearly indicates that this wasn’t her first experience and she has suffered this silently all this while. Here’s the dangerous part – by logic and implication it also indicates that she may take future incidents of this nature in her stride too. Why is NDTV silent on all of this? Is this some private matter of their journalist and not something she encountered in her line of duty?

Sunetra then talks about a sexual harassment panel for such experiences. “My organisation does have one of those, as a matter of fact, and it is a fairly active panel as well…..I just want to point out that I didn’t even take this ‘Pervy Politician’ issue to my editors and they would have read about it like everybody else did. I wasn’t hiding anything, it’s just that, at the time, I was too busy doing my work to report anything else”. These are really stunning revelations. NDTV has a sexual harassment panel but she couldn’t or didn’t take it up with them? And that her editors would have heard of the incident just like everybody else from her DNA article? What is amazing is that for an incident that rankles so much she even says she was too busy doing her work to report anything else. Well, if a few days later if it was worth taking up and writing in DNA why not take it up with the NDTV panel as well?

Alright, she says she didn’t take it up with her editors. Well, after her first article on July 10 did her editors call her and ask her about the incident? Did they say they are going to take some action? One can safely presume there might have been a discussion on it between NDTV and Sunetra. My expectations of NDTV are very low, but surely, even at NDTV editors can’t be that dumb to notice a sensational article by one of their journalists and simply not even talk about it. Was that the case? She says even politicians called her and offered help. Nobody from NDTV or the NDTV sexual harassment panel called up? Surely, if not the name of the offender, Sunetra must reveal how her organisation responded. Else this saga of working in one media outlet and complaining in another can be seen from many different angles.

Sunetra doesn’t want to name the offender but at the end of the article she leaves you with what looks like another hint: “I should mention that I’m probably going to be bumping into the perv soon. It’s inevitable with me being a political journalist, isn’t it? There’s a planned public event where he’s slotted to appear and I admit, that there’s a part of me that’s very scared about meeting him again. But then I remind myself, I have done nothing wrong and if anything, it’s the perv who should be hiding, not me”. Well, if that perv is going about public events like a routine it doesn’t seem like he’s hiding or even about to hide. Sunetra is currently on holiday since her first article in DNA. If and when she returns let’s see what happens to this whole episode. If she is scared of meeting this politician again as she has stated it is clearly time NDTV realised what they are putting their journalist through.

And what can I say about NDTV? Train with the best? Experience truth, first? Perversion of truth? In her latest article on Hindustan Times website Barkha Dutt quotes The Gita line “dishonour is worse than death”! NDTV should know all about dishonour, I suppose.