Are you from the past?

Couple of weeks back,one summery evening we were strolling around the pool area of our apartment complex. Its a cool little tucked away area with a nice adults and a kid's pool with an adjoining club/bar.There is a nice children's play area too with swings and slides.I was busy admiring the cute little duck family who were frolicking by the fountain in a nearby pond,when a kid probably around 6 or 7 asked what language we were conversing in-was it Chinese? he asked. Not sure if he would understand if I said Hindi, I told him it was Indian and so were we. He pondered over this for a while and then shot back-Are you from the past? I was amused,obviously he had understood "Indians" as in Red Indians and hence his bewildered question-were we actually the Red Indians from his history books.?I thought about Bill Cosby...he was right-Kids say the darnedest things.

Where's News?

What a week it was with the Paris Hilton saga plastered like confetti all over the American media.Its not for me to mention the sorry saga all over here,but it was downright apalling to see the numbing coverage.I am generally annoyed and somewhat mildly amused by the media circus back home in India.There used to be a time when I was growing up in the eighties and all we had was the drab and infinitely boring Doordarshan news.The only thing I looked forward to in those dreary news boadcasts was clippings of ongoing cricket matches.Other than that brief respite it was one long,'put-to-sleep' affair fittingly terminated by the last piece "Mausam ki jaankari".

Cut back to the present- an array of glitzy news channels-Zee News,NDTV,CNN-IBN....and many more that I can't keep up with. You have well dressed news readers/journalists...we seem to have come a long way from DD news days or have we? Most of the news content is shockingly bizarre.You got to watch Zee news,the coverage is so flimsy,the tone overly dramatic to the point of being classified as slapstick comedy.There is barely any debate/discussion which addresses the burning issues of the day.Movie stars and cricketers loom large.Agreed, we need to hear about them,how else do we justify their celebrity status but news coverage is a farce if I get to hear mostly overblown stories and 'sting' operations!.

Where is the informed,responsible,balanced and most importantly news coverage I can believe?We need something to the likes of CBS 60 minutes or Anderson Coopers 360 on CNN.
Oh yeah we do need more Rajdeep's,Prannoy Roy's,Vinod Dua's and a far less dose of the menu at a Bollywood party.For that please do have a 24/7 entertainment tonight and I confess I would like to catch up on it every now and then.But other than that,let me hear about what's on in the nation and rest of the planet.I believe that would be 'News'.