…and I still missed a story.

Hakeem Irfan

Last Sunday I woke very late. It was the time of lipton at ten for rest of the family but I had to embarrassingly ask for the Nun chai (salt tea) .Nun chai was served but with the more salt of satirical annotations from my family. Yes I was 5 hour late than my average family schedule. I live in a joint family and you could yourself imagine how intense would have been the shower of comments. Even my youngest 8 year old cousin got a chance to abuse me and make happy her inner self as she got a chance to harass her sermonizer and occasional guide.

But I could not react as I had already missed the all important morning prayers and also the weekly opportunity of meeting my maternal Uncle and paternal aunt. Mamaji (uncle) and Paphi ji (Aunt) arrives at our house early in the morning every Sunday after weekly morning walk. They breakfast at our house. This Sunday I missed my religious and social obligation. What other reason one needs to be labeled as outcast. My Amiji commented in Kashmiri “akh wothuk duphaaras nendre baeye chuk che Cholmut” which means “one you were out of the bed in afternoon and you even don’t value relations”. This is how morning of my last Sunday started.With all this baggage I left my home in search of a story for my newspaper.

Sunday’s are mostly barren or impotent for stories. I boarded a bus to City centre (Lal Chowk). On the last seat of the bus I was thinking of the Pulitzer Prize in journalism and the ceremony for noble prize winners. The horrible shake at double speed breaker near Doulatabad (Nowpora) brought me back to the nation of bunkers and barbed wires, Nation that is fighting for a cause from so many years. I could see the bunkers of foreign troopers constructed on roads and also few of the troopers trampling the green grass on the nearby graveyard. I just uttered little unsocial slang within myself.

Meanwhile I called up my three sources and also the Public Relations Officers of the people I take care of news wise. But no one had anything to offer and thus it was a sterile day for my beat. I got down from the bus at Regal Chowk. Khan News Agency was my next stopover as here you can update yourself with a cursory look at every news paper without purchasing even a single copy. Often journalists check their bylines here only. Hilal (Owner) greets everybody with a smile although only few are potential customers (I don’t know is it a hearty gesture or he fears that media persons are good at messing up things).I was there to check my bylines in our newspaper. I still was not able to find some story and my common sense was very uncommon that day. I was really getting out of ideas. I went to press colony and heard that some press conference is going to happen but not from my beat. I still went and had a good lunch, additionally got some stuff for the city editor as well. But I was still thinking about some front page stuff (as our editors call it) which I was not able to get.

Disappointingly I went my office and sat with my boss. He gave some valuable tips and insights. But the whole baggage of home and story paucity was still lingering in my mind.I just got up and went to the news room. I started surfing net. It was also disappointing as nobody had scrapped or even forwarded any mail. Not even a spam lottery mail (to which few of our friends do reply). Later in the day I got a call from a source and did a story from my beat. It was good and I was a bit relaxed.

Next day I woke up early in the morning. I had my breakfast with few of the family members although I was an hour late that day as well. But things were tending to normalcy. Suddenly “Malgudi Days” signature tone of my cell chimed up. It was a call from my boss. He said “Yaar you have missed a big story on your beat on Sunday, You should be alert and see why you don’t remain informed about things.”This was my first day of week and then the things followed as “usual”. I remember one of the Goethe’s couplets:“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”