'Bicycle Thief' in the making in Bhagalpur

image source:indiatimes

There could hardly be anybody who would not be moved by the pathetic condition of Antonio who gets beaten up by the mob while trying to steal a bicycle, in Bicycle Thief, a vintage movie set in post-war Europe. In the movie, Antonio, the protagonist, who is caught in abject poverty lives in a time of widespread unemployment. He learns about the job of a poster man which is meant only for persons having bicycles. Having his own bicycle stolen and the responsibility of his wife and son weighing on him heavily, Antonio is left with no other choice but to steal a bicycle. When he does it quite unprofessionally, the crowd beats him up back and blue while his kid watches him helplessly with tears rolling down his cheeks.
The emotion could not be any different when one watched TV footages of a youth fastened to a two-wheeler being dragged on the road by a policeman in Bhagalpur, Bihar, on Tuesday. Mohd Aurangajeb, the victim was punished in such a brutal way by the police for his petty crime - snatching a gold chain. He was then dumped on to a cycle cart to be carried to a police station instead to a hospital. The man who was begging for mercy was roughed up by the people all along. The people who meted out `criminal justice’ to the chain-snatcher seemed to be exalted over their `valiant’ efforts, as though they had won a Napoleonic war. Soon, the police, the custodians of law, joined the barbaric act by dragging the bleeding youth along the road.
Aurangajeb who appeared to be a confused illiterate is an autorikshaw driver and has a sister to look after as his parents are no more (going by the TV reports).
Astonishingly, Bhagalpur DIG, G N Sharma defended the act saying that the police had done a good job by rescuing the thief from the mob. According to him, Aurangajeb was fastened to a motorcycle to prevent him from escaping and he accidentally fell down and got dragged only for some distance.
Echoing similar opinion, Anil Sinha, another senior police officer, questioned the attitude of the people who took law in their hands. In an apparent bid to defocus the attention on the police brutality, he talked about the `plummeting values’ in the `civilized society’ in asked “where we are heading to?”.
More interesting was the statement of Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav who said it was the ‘Jungle Raj’ of Nitish Kumar government, and talked of increasing corruption, loosening law and order! It is not sure if the former Bihar CM made such a criticism after watching the news as nobody saw the hand of the government in the barbaric incident except the police atrocity.
Bhagalpur has a history of police atrocities since the time of Laloo. But no officials and politicians talk about it. And now, there are fears that the Bhagalpur incident could turn out to be a communal issue as the victim belongs to a minority community.
A still from `Bicycle Thief'. image source: moviediva

Jog Falls from unusual viewpoints

Come Rainy season, the world famous Jog Falls regains its glory, attracting tourists from all over. People come, see and enjoy the splendour of the Falls from the usual viewpoints. Here are some of the views of the Falls from quite unexplored angles. This is a close view of the Falls.


View of waterfalls from Forest Guest House point, seen from British Bunglow, Jog Falls.


A close view of Raja, the main constituent of Jog Falls.


Wonderful view of Raja of Jog Falls in the backdrop of concave rocky wall.


We are at the beginning of a great fall. This is the point where one of the falls dives down.


Peeping into Raja from rocky terrain.


Deeper(!) view of the depth of Jog Falls.


It is a waterfalls which takes birth only during the rainy season. It is seen on the right side of the main Jog Falls.


Seasonal waterfalls on the left side of Jog Falls. One can approach the point from a Forest Guest House also seen above.


Another view of the seasonal waterfalls by the side of Jog Falls

YouTube Debate: Politics of Verisimilitude

When CNN and YouTube collaboratively provided a platform for netizens to interrogate US presidential candidates on Monday, it heralded a novelty in the history/future of the media. It was the first ever video-questioning of the running horses by the public through a social networking site, and, the telecast of the same by the traditional media, lending a sense of immediacy and a streak of naturalness to the otherwise-reality-show. Here, the second part of the description (sense of immediacy…streak of naturalness) of CNN-YouTube surreal show is an initial uncensored thought and hence could be vague.
Politics apart, the collaboration of new media with the old has presented us a phenomenon requiring some thought. While hailing the foray of social networking site into the active political realm as a defining moment comparable to the impact of television on politics when Richard Nixon debated John Kennedy during 1960 presidential elections, the liaison of old and the new media has been interpreted in many ways even within the media fraternity.
To borrow the coinage of The Sydney Morning Herald, “Old media are entering into an uneasy alliance with new media to grill the Democratic candidates in the US presidential race”. Certainly, the expression here echoes a sense of insecurity and a fear of the new among the traditional media.
New York Times wrote, “Yet while there was a new format for the debate, which was sponsored by CNN and the video-sharing Web site YouTube, the change went only so far: Candidates frequently lapsed into their talking points, and there was little actual debate among them”.
CNN-YouTube presidential debate is a path-breaking phenomenon merely of its novelty and not because of its ability to impact the way of the old media. That is to say, it failed to redefine the relationship of the performer (presidential candidates, in this case) and the audience (TV viewers) so as to liberate the latter from the shackles of the traditional media. On the contrary, it brought a section of the audience (cybercitizens) within the ambit of the old media and imposed `editorial judgment’ on them. Bringing people out of their closet and subjecting them to the scanner of the camera is in a way reinforcing the authority of the old media.
The event could not do away with the moderator, the media interface between the people and the candidates. It was just a surrealistic show creating an impression among the public that they were directly engaging the presidential candidates, little realising that it was instead them who were being `watched’ and hence `interrogated’.
Of more than 2,000 video questions that were posted on YouTube for the debate, only 37 could confirm to the editorial judgment of the CNN editors (who, of course, are bound by time). Elimination of rest of the questions and the `editorial discretion’ exercised by the professionally regulated old media while choosing `appropriate’ voter videos nullified the very essence of the amateurishly free new media at one go. The rest was just the continuation of any other presidential debates on the television involving a moderator who struggles hard to contain the oratory of the candidates so as not to exceed the timeline.
It is surely a change from the days when only the people used to watch candidates on their TV screens in their houses to a day where the candidates observe the `voters’ on the screen and study them. The cybercitizens who participated in the YouTube show appeared powerless as they were not provided an opportunity to cross-question the candidates and to engage them in true sense. Instead, their personality and the surrounding came to the full public glare. This lent a sense of immediacy and naturalness to the show which was not true. And centredaily.com is correct in predicting that “The march of citizen video into politics might not have the revolutionary impact that television had a half-century ago - despite predictions of such an upheaval Monday from YouTube's founders”