Life

Life

Why is it that the several that gain their very prominence, and sometimes a very decent living to boot, from setting stridently lofty standards for others, nurse a subconscious wish to be hoisted on their own petard?  

The psychologists and ‘shrinks’ have their hypotheses of course, but the question is still worth asking. Could it be the secret urge to be brought down? Is there a desire to be ‘bad’ combined with a masochistic need to be humbled? Is it hubris, low-self esteem, a ‘fix-it’ manipulative mindset, moral bankruptcy, the corruption of power, the feeling of being ‘above the law’ or  a  delusion of invincibility?

Is it the flirtation with danger and disrepute that provides the frisson to a jaded sexual appetite? We have seen this happen, to the headline writer’s delight, time and again. The fire and brimstone preacher caught with his pants down, the craven evangelist, the flawed idealist, the ‘incorruptible’,   an otherwise charismatic politician who posts pictures of his ‘family jewels’ via mms, gay rock stars roughed up by ‘yobs’ in public toilets, film heroes caught being serviced in cars,  lurid politicians in bunga-bunga mode, wannabe ingénues snuffed out like candles.

It is an unsavoury potpourri, but more funny than tragic when one looks at the disgraced perpetrators. But then, there is the very real suffering and trauma of the victims, especially when it ends, as it does so frequently, in gruesome murder.

But, here Tehelka, long in the public’s face for its intrusive style of journalism, its ‘stings’

involving secret cameras, its flowery prose, has come a cropper.  The hidden cameras have long

been seen by many as unfair if not illegal ‘entrapment’. In addition, Tehelka’s Left-leaning tone,

largely seen as pro-Congress, positions it, somewhat superciliously, as morally superior. But now,

as the cliché would have it, its Editor is himself in the dock for a spot of moral turpitude.

Tehelka, originally set-up as a website erected on a shoe-string, but with moneyed supporters in the shadows, came to the nation’s notice by mounting a damaging, if ultimately hollow attack, on the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government, using its trademark low-blows and aggressively intrusive means.

Then, Tehelka’s management thought nothing of attempting to trash several reputations including those of then Defence Minister George Fernandes, that of his companion Jaya Jaitley, several military personnel and others.  Subsequently, Tehelka milked the notoriety for years, collecting donations and subscriptions, portraying itself as a victim of the BJP Government’s harassment, and evading all questions on its less than ethical and credible methods, that allegedly included  ‘staged’ footage and outright ‘plants’.

Could it be that the fallen from such manufactured grace can’t endure their pedestals? Is it a burden to be taken so seriously for one’s mere sleight of hand? The inveterate finger- pointer Tarun Tejpal, is only the latest fly caught in the honey-pot. He has been a man of many parts. A journalist with India Today and Outlook, then an Editor/Writer/Impresario/BJP baiter/Congress camp follower.  

Tejpal was about, apparently indulging his James Bond fantasy in a Goa hotel lift, with, as it turns out, an unwilling young whistleblowing woman. He acted promptly to try and diffuse his ‘lapse of judgement’, but his reputation, always a little ‘sharp’, may have sprouted a new layer of question marks. The rest of Civil Society, The Goa Government, quite a few of his employees, and much of the Media, are apparently not for turning. The Congress Party is,  predictably, keeping quiet.   

In a fractious poll-season, when the dirty tricks department of the beleaguered Congress Party is in full spate looking for straws in the wind, a self-goal like this from a loyal supporter is not helpful. Today, the largely pro-government media, mindful of the nature of the flow of sarkari advertisements it lives on, is still having to grudgingly admit that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate is gaining ground with the people across the country. The broad media does this now, but is still very eager to find and report anything to the contrary. Even if it is trivia on fumbling  of dates and facts used rhetorically by NaMo on the stump!  But fortunately the reams of bizarre Rahulisms outdo NaMos bloopers anytime.

The ground below our feet is shifting relentlessly towards the new India that NaMo wishes to usher in. We can all feel it. It is a change that will break through many certainties and assumptions of a ruling elite grown rigid and arthritic.

The economy of India, gasping for relief is waiting for this development and marking time as best as it can.

Perhaps this sort of incident involving Tejpal is why people love sad songs. They reminds us of relentless, inexorable change, all that we have loved and lost, our betrayals and humiliations, the fading of youth, innocence, and sometimes, that ‘momentary lapse’ of what we call good sense.

In Portugal, sad songs have a traditional genre called the ‘Fado’, filled with longing and the sense of loss. It exists in the Manohar Parrikar ruled Goa too, but alas as an endangered species, in these days of homogenised global trends and a hungry tourist economy.  

The dowager Lady Grantham, in the popular fictional TV series Downton Abbey, about turn of the century British aristocracy, makes a robust remark that might be part of the answer: she says in Season 4, episode 8, ‘No life appears rewarding if you think too much about it’.  

And any fall from grace by definition is innately painful, and no less if it results in exile. The Congress Party and its hangers on must be looking at its philosophies and missteps in private, even as it packs its bags and prepares to relinquish its hold on power.  

(952 words)

November 21^st, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee