MRS. AGNI - THE FIRE THAT FIGHTS THE CANCER

What doesn't stop to amaze me is the shock and disbelief that the media imparts, that which is calculatedly maneuvered to spread itself out like a virus among viewers/readers seeking revenge and truth, with the outbreak of every story of cheating in the country.
Come on, what is so shocking?
Why so much disbelief?
So much drama?!
We could be joking, if we were to accept the unusual in what is happening with IPL, Coalgate and all other scams that never cease to grip media glare as though, if it were not so, how would there be a control of the audiences glued to their TV Sets, IPhones, Smart Phones, whatever?
Sensational news is akin to entertainment.
The background scores of Madhubala and Uttaran, are the same as the background scores telling stories on news channels of rape, murder, cheating or any other crime.
And when it is questioned, those controlling the jolly stick just smile.
You can go suck your thumb, or sit in the darkness of an information embargo for all they care; because India is a growing market, and just like the rest of the world perceives it as to keep on growing for the next 25 years or so, so do the Indian Industries who had already unleashed the nets long before the foreign marketers convinced the Indian Government to release the gates of those dam's holding back the holy waters of the international label meant to trap and fish the imagination of an out of control population, which is upwardly mobile and ready to be made excited, made to lap up and leap with every bang of the synthesizer.
You don't like it, then you don't count, as numbers at the other end keep growing, and the stats can easily be managed sans you.
Are you quality conscious?
Then pull up your socks and make enough money to afford the unaffordable, holidays et al, because you shall remain unheard however loud you may amplify your protest in the existing chaos and din.

Hello, so we are to believe that Sreesanth and Co are the only ones spot fixing for the bookies?
That Pawan Bansal and Ashwani Kumar are the only guys interfering with processes of the system?
That all others are clean as only the frozen waters of the glaciers can be now, as every other drop of melted water gets polluted with the decadent downpour of corruption.
Like there's a common joke going around town for some time now; that when in power, you can do as you please, but only as long as you don't get caught.
And if you choose not to catch the direction of the breeze, then bleed, be left behind with your bruised sail, or smoke some more marijuana to numb your senses. 
Moral of the story: Keep going along with the others, right or wrong, keep your ass covered, go ahead and make money, as much as you can rake in while the sun shines on your head and you are one with the bunch pounding another to pulp.

Water, they say!
The next world war will be for water.
What about food, health services, shelter, education, what about all those indignities that one battered world is terrorizing the other bettered world for?
Is that not World War 111, World War 1V and World War V?
Who are we kidding?
Now step aside well in time and gracefully before the tide turns and make sure that you are not the fall guy, the scapegoat, the one who takes the rap for the wrongdoings of your accomplices, the Raja, the Kanimoze, the Bansal, the Kumar, the Sreesanth etc. etc., the list is endless.

That 'public memory is short', is a misnomer.
That, 'public believes that media will go on despite its loyalty because audiences are ever changing and when gone, it will not count', is the harsh truth.
After having listened to endless debates and discussions about a systemic failure and what a nation needs to do about it, after having supported many protests and movements, the recent public that believed media once upon a time, is exhausted and has retired, like its predecessors had done some time ago.
It has fallen out, been left behind along the way, because bigger numbers caught up with the monster storm, feeding and fueling it to keep it rolling and garnering greater power.
There is a whole new youth, enthusiastic to gather strength, excited to be the change, the harbor for the tired, the docks for the beaten and broken, the shields for the scorching heat that can burn.
They're the ones consuming information now.
The stories are the same, the players have changed.
The young dancing to the beat, singing to the music that's getting edgier by the day, are actually convinced that the power they wield with the media they devour will lift the cloud of doom from not just over their heads, but also from over the heads of those endless powerless previous generations gone grey and wrinkled with at first loosing faith, then with shock, disbelief and anger that finally left them anguished, pained,  disappointed and bitter. 
Dad, you're a cynic, step aside and let me handle this. Let me show you what you should've (could've) done! - is the strain.

And in that menacing truth, there is a beautiful lady, Mrs. Agni, a middle class Maharashtrian like the rest of us middle class Panjabi's, Gujarati's and Tamil's and others, looking after her daughter Pria, who has recently fought cancer and come out victorious.
Mrs. Agni who scolded all of us when we joked about the lack of passes for visitors at the hospital where Pria is recuperating from a personal battle.
Pria is one seriously popular person and there was a cue of visitors waiting to see her, meet her, after the successful but painful surgery she had been through.
She is fun and full of power, and she wanted to be surrounded by all those who love her.
Pria's daughter Pari joked, and suggested that we go to a printer and get a few more passes made, who's to know?... and Mrs. Agni saw red when all of us laughed and told her what a good idea that was.
She told us not to dare do anything like that! She told us not even to joke about it!
She told us how pathetic a thing it would be to do, how shameful and indecent.
I told Mrs. Agni what a breath of fresh air she sounded like in this corrupt and shameless world, where many a people might not have flinched to go ahead and take on the suggestion.
Mrs. Agni turned around and told me, 'Remember, it is because of people like us, you and me and all of us here, who fear doing wrong, whom you call the breath of fresh air in a polluted environment, because of whom that the world still is. If it weren't for us, the world would have been destroyed a long time ago'.
Full power to you Mrs. Agni!
You are the angel, the reminder that we have a job to do, even while we fight cancer and other dreaded disease, and that is to wage war with malaise, with corruption, with apathy and with terror, and we can do it without power, sans ammunition, media or gun.
We can do it by just being who we are, by being plain honest.
We love you Mrs. Agni!