The Media Man

I smile on hearing them saying, I am a media personality, A press spokesman, A reporter, a correspondent, They saying it often And this I have been hearing it since my childhood. In the small town, the district town of the then times, I used to hear, He is a reporter, a correspondent, But we used to view life otherwise, How to be a man was most important to us Rather than becoming a newsman? Instead of farmlands and properties, We aspired to be Brahminical, Religious, devout and pietistic Rather than critical of, Believed in dharma and karma And the reaping of consequences. Many who used to bring out local dailies Used to do this and that, The petty-petty men Bringing out petty-petty things As well as petty-petty poems, Even the non-matrics bringing out. The correspondents, reporters and newsmen are like Pleaders and insurance company agents And these will rise high in life As for goodness or badness, But the original will trail and lag behind, I am sure of it, As have seen it personally. One media man said he, I go to even that place where the dead body lies thrown off And it is in reality a news item, What the media man said struck it not, As he reports for money, name and fame But I try to be human And this is the difference to be felt and marked.