Accidental Death of a Very Famous Peacock

          They were discussing the accidental death of a very famous Peacock aal over the TV. It was in the private garden of a billionaire that the peacock died of drowning.  It was on air for at least four days.  Press had the freedom, people have the freedom to discuss anything under the sun.  Yes it was a very famous Peacock, no doubt.  The peacock had plumes that no other animal or bird had. It is beautiful, it would dance beautifully like a Bharathanatyam dance,  it would shake its waist like an Arabian belly dancer , ir caberet dancer in a bar in a Bombay suburb.  It was all about beauty.

          And then started the descent.  They talked about this peacock that is so strong that it could not have died so trivially, so cheap and so suddenly.  For death comes to the great men and women, in a grand style or else you have to make it grand.  It could not have been so bland and uninteresting.  Death could have informed the media or at least could have given a clue so that Press could have had it.  Since Press was not ready for this grand event becoming so trivial, it had to make it grand. The media, the second Gods decided so.  Death had to satisfy the reasonable questions of fair minded, truth seeking anchors

          Of course it is the very same media that did not ask why a prime Minister of a country of more than 30 crore people living below poverty level of earning 32 rupees a day belonging to a very poor family, could wear jackets of lakhs of  rupees and still represent and also work for these poor people.

          It is the same media which does not reel out statistics of millions who die of malnutrition and diseases.  The whole time business of the media is spectacle and continuous staging of spectacular events or finding them for the well fed middle class chatteratti.  Accidental death of a very famous peacock is such a spectacle and even if it is not it had to be made such a spectacle.  It can be played again and again and people have no way of expressing their views since it is a one way communication.  Only the TV Gods can talk.  This death of a peacock could be made to look like a mystery thriller of immence potential.  The reports of visceral examination, skin examination etc have to be analysed by people, not definitely qualified to even make a cursory glance of any dead body, leave alone that of a peacock.  

          This fills time.  And people are watching. They are actually lapping it up.  Greatest of doctors came over the studios and speculate about the possibilities of a mystery thriller and of course to show their faces on National Television   These are te very same doctors who not falling prey to public opinions prepare and sign autopsy reports of ordinary mortals or famous people.   They can come to the studios even if they don’t know anything about either peacock or the cause of its death.  So accommodating, for public purposes.

          Of course, no one is protesting.  Everyone is having a good time, at the expence of the dead peacock and public.  Except the people who really need attention to get some relief for their problems that are so ordinary and so common that they do not make news any more i.e. poverty, sickness access to education or lack of infrastructure ( don’t imaging Bridges or Railways, they are too big, think of Toilets.

          Four days and 24 hours still going on, the battle for the truth.  Bharath Mata ki jai, Vande Materam and so on.