ON THAT NOTE

Suresh Menon is a writer based in India. In his youth he set out to change the world but later decided to leave it as it is

Our columnist Suresh Menon takes potshots at his own kind... journalists.

It starts off innocently enough. You are six, your sister is three and she appears annoyingly happy as she plays with her toys, hitting one with the other in an easy rhythm to see what will happen. Nine brothers out of ten would look away and carry on with their lives telling themselves something along the lines of “None of my business.” But one in ten makes it his business to stick his nose in, and offer advice or angry words or poke fun.

Enlightened parents take one look at this and nod knowingly at each other. “Ah!” they say, “Our son, the journalist.” Unlike manufacturers of snuff who put their business into other people’s noses, my fraternity is known for the reverse. In fact, with our college diplomas and university degrees comes a certificate officially naming us the “Interferer-Generals” of the community.

We are licensed to grill, thrill chill, drill, provide the frills, and when it’s all over, to bill. If we had a number, there would be too many zeroes at the start, so that idea was dropped. Double 0 and triple 0 are easy enough, but anything beyond that is difficult to remember.

When did you decide to become a journalist, I am often asked, as if I had a choice. There was no decision involved. It is merely natural progression from announcing to the parents that the little one has wet her bed to telling the teacher what happened to the homework to explaining to the man whose car you ran into with your bike that you are somewhere else, so couldn’t have done it. Story telling is not just a gift, it is often a necessity.

Telling people what to do is our main occupation. One day we are telling the politicians how to run the country, the next we are criticising the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and sometimes on the same day we advice someone who has played a hundred Test matches in cricket where his toes should point when playing a particular stroke. We don’t shy away from telling bankers and movie makers and economists and fighter plane manufacturers and mountain climbers and road planners how to do their jobs.

But should any of these professionals tell us how to do ours, we take offence. Why can’t he mind his own business, we say, and leave us to mind ours – which involves minding his, of course. Bad manners make a journalist, said Oscar Wilde, and many of us qualify, convinced of the power of the written (and spoken) word.

But the pen is not mightier than the sword – have you ever tried cutting somebody’s head off with a biro?